


Home is the Stars on the Tip of Your Tongue

by Wrenly



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Dalish, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Iron Bull is Still a Good Friend, Iron Bull is Still the Best One, Light Jealousy, Manipulation, NSFW, Only those sad endings, POV Inquisitor (Dragon Age), POV Solas (Dragon Age), Pining, Seriously Inquisitor Anyone But Solas, Solas is Still Terrible, Solavellan, Solavellan Hell, Tragic Romance, Trespasser Spoilers, Violence, tragic ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-02-07 19:00:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21462934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrenly/pseuds/Wrenly
Summary: Solas had never grown accustomed to the swiftness of the ruined world. Everything died and everything rushed towards death. He watched them, the shadows of his people, disconnected, yearning for something they no longer had the capacity to understand. He had been so sure that he was keeping himself above it, thinking like one of the Elvhen people, despite walking through the tatters the world had become. He hadn’t realized how deeply it had affected him until the first time he had been intimate with the Inquisitor.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor & Solas, Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan/Solas, Fen'Harel/Inquisitor/Solas, Inquisitor/Iron Bull (Implied Attraction), Inquisitor/Sera (Implied Attraction), Inquisitor/Solas, Inquisitor/Vivienne (Implied Attraction), Lavellan & Solas
Comments: 27
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guess what? That Solavellan axe isn't ground down, yet. Let the grinding continue, this time including sex! 
> 
> As ever, this work would be absolutely worse in every way without my strong and brave beta readers Rey and Nathan.

Solas had never grown accustomed to the swiftness of the ruined world. Everything died and everything rushed towards death. He watched them, the shadows of his people, disconnected, yearning for something they no longer had the capacity to understand. He had been so sure that he was keeping himself above it, thinking like one of the Elvhen people, despite walking through the tatters the world had become. He hadn’t realized how deeply it had affected him until the first time he had been intimate with the Inquisitor. 

When he went to her quarters, the room was cold. It was always cold, the balcony doors and curtains perpetually flung wide, letting the wind off the mountains fill the room. He intended to end the affair before it truly began. No lasting harm could come from a few shared embraces in dreams. He would help her refocus herself on stopping Corypheus, they would find the Orb and then all this would finally end. He’d intended to tell her how great his respect for her was, but that it could not be more. 

But Creation, that broad smile and broader mind. The title they had given her suited her well - Inquisitor. He couldn’t remember meeting another soul as inquisitive since he had awoken. She challenged him, and he wanted to cut himself open on the sharpness of her wit. He should have ended it, but he could not bear the thought of turning away from her. Not without at least feeling the edge of her pressed against him, savoring her, letting her in.

Ending it would have been the right thing, but if he did without her, he’d regret it; and if they stopped Corypheus and if he regained the Orb, his regret might last forever. 

He thought that he understood the full power of his attraction to her in the Fade. When magic had not been cut off from the world, emotions had felt the same in the deeper pools as in the shallows. When you had endless life, a flirtation could last an age, gentle kisses could span years, the achingly slow dance of releasing your lover and recapturing them. 

Not so, here.

Oh, not so here. 

“It means I have not forgotten about the kiss,” he said, intentions in ruins. 

He had meant to allow himself to hold her, taste her with a gentle brush of lips. A taste without remorse. Instead, she set him on fire. His hand was buried in her hair, keeping her lips against his, his forearm hard against her back. She responded fiercely, her leg hooking behind his, pulling his hips into the cradle of hers, her hands knotting in his tunic. And _ still _ it wasn’t enough. He felt her groan against him, teeth biting down onto his bottom lip and felt the familiar chip in her front tooth catch sharply. His reaction to that passion pushed them both against the balcony. The jarring motion reminded him of himself, and he drew back. Her clenched fists did not allow him to retreat far. He had promised himself a sweet moment in her arms but this... he could have stopped, then, broken her grip and saved her heart. Instead he let her jerk him back down against her for another deep, biting kiss. After a long moment, he withdrew, gasping. 

“Inquisitor-I,” he began, as he pulled free from her tight grip, stepping away. She paced after him, only stopping when he crossed the threshold back into her rooms. She watched him, arm braced above her head on the doorframe, eyes hot. “There is still so much to consider and I need a little more time... to think.” He reached up, adjusting the collar of his shirt. He only imagined he could still feel the warmth of her grasp on it. 

“You _ could _ go think, I love to watch you think,” she said, her voice lower than usual and so full. Promise, invitation, desire. He could have left with nothing exchanged but rough kisses. He could have met her next in the Rotunda, surrounded by too many witnesses to risk a dalliance, and told her that he had thought and decided there was no time and no opportunity for love and that neither of them could afford the distraction. 

He did not turn, he did not stop. His hand was on the banister, his foot was on the step. He knew how this would end. He needed to fix the world he had broken. To do that, he would sunder this one, but there was no need to make it crueler than it had to be. 

“Or you could stay.” 

He paused there, not taking another step. If he chose cruelty, there was no need to make that choice now, he had time. For now, they both had time. Time to break their hearts at their ease. “I _ want _you to stay.” He should not have turned and when he did, he found himself across the room, his hands her waist, before he could think.

It was so fast. His actions, the memory of the actions that should have been savoured, were like a scroll caught flame, barely a breath and consumed. Her arms were around his shoulders, fingers digging into the nape of his neck, demanding his mouth on hers. He gave her everything she asked for, the wild, stumbling crush of their bodies moved them outside, her back against the railing. He was pressed so hard against her that she had to force her hands between them when she hooked her thumbs into the waist of his pants, tugging at them, dragging them between them, all so fast and still too slow. His own hands clutching at her, unwilling to let her go, but needing her out of the soft leathers she was dressed in, scrabbling until his hands were finally, finally full of her warm flesh. His knuckles scraped against the rough stone as he lifted her.

“Yes,” she hissed against his ear, hips tilting forward, knees wrapping around his hips, feet bound together, caught in boots and pants and weapons and underthings. For the briefest moment he felt the brush of her hair against the head of him and he was shoving inside her. No time to consider, no time for anything but being as deep in her, as close to her as he could be. “Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted harshly, hands moving under his shirt pulling up loops of his belt as they went, catching them higher on his torso, finally finding purchase in his back pulling him harder against her. Solas was wordless, he groaned, keeping a tight hold on her ass. The awkwardness of the position hindered their movements, it was only possible for him to make short, sharp thrusts into her, but they were both so hungry, it was all they needed. Her breath came faster, losing even the simple word as she pushed back against him, demanding more, needing and it was so, so good. That need, that heat, her. Her. Her low long cry as she bucked against him, hands spasming against his back and he should not give in, not so soon, let it not be over, oh, oh her, and he forgot himself again, deep and tight inside her. 

They leaned against each other, both breathing heavy, her face pressed into his shoulder, his into her hair. They were tangled together, her arms under his shirt, locked around his back, his hands pressed between her body and the railing, chests crushed together, their pants caught around their boots and he was still hopelessly buried inside her. He could have spent an age in this foolish knot, surrounded by her, listening to their bodies and tasting her sweat on his lips. 

Eventually, he felt her slowly lift her head, her fingers loosened from where they had dug tightly under his shoulder blades as she shifted her legs. He regretted the loss of the weight and pressure. He wanted to reach up and guide her head back down to his shoulder, but his hands were still trapped behind their bodies. 

The swiftness of it shocked him as much as the act itself. Had it been a quarter hour since he entered her rooms promising himself he would extricate them from the possibility of this? 

“You’re going to have to lift me off the ledge,” she said, dislodging him from her hair, her tone rueful, but her smile, ah, he had never seen it so soft. The dreamy expression was at odds with his usual quick, hard Inquisitor. “I don’t trust my knees or my balance.” She lowered her knees and looked down at the hopeless snarl of clothes between them. “Or the terrain.” The motion unseated him and his soft sigh was mirrored by one from her, she pressed her nose back against his shoulder for a moment. Too soon. It was all too soon. 

“As my _ lethallen _wishes,” he said and took a careful half step back, lowering her back to the ground, keeping her body braced against his hands. 

“Only _ lethallen _ after that?” She moved with him, feet back on the ground, but continued to lean against him, apparently not entirely ready to give up the contact.

What _ was _ “that” between them, he wondered - what did this mean to her, to him, to his plans? Barely a moment and everything was yet more complicated and it had already been so very complicated. What was she to him now? “Surely, I’ve been promoted to the moonlight dappling the trees of your heart?” As suddenly as he had needed her body against his, Solas needed to see her face again. Did it match the joke in her voice or was it still suffused with that unexpected serenity? He moved half a heartbeat away from her and lifted her chin. She met his eyes without hesitation, but then when did she ever hesitate? Her eyes were wider than usual, her lips still in that sweet, loose smile and he found his thumb running along the curve of them instead of focusing on her expression. There was blood on the backs of his hands from where he had raked them across the stones, but he did not feel it. 

“I already treasure you as a friend,” he said. She might be his only friend, now, outside of the Fade. “Do you want more?”

Her hand raised, covering his, making him cradle her cheek. He saw her pupils dilate in an extreme response to his question just before she closed her eyes. She gave him what space she could, answering the question blind, not demanding. More bravery and consideration from a woman who was so unlike the shadows he had encountered.

“Solas,” she sighed. “I’ve seen the wide wide world and I’ve never… I would be _ vhenan _ to you, _ arasha _ .” She would be his heart and that he would be her happiness. Hearing her say it in their old, old language... he remembered a time when this, _ this, _ was all he would have asked for. Her strength, her brilliance, her love. The possibility left him dumb, it was too much, too fast. Everything was too fast. It was not enough, now. How could it be? Even with the promise of her, what contentment could he find in this ragged world? “I only want what you can give. I know there is something…” she trailed off, so clearly needing something from him. 

The problem with loving a brilliant woman was how much she saw and how clearly. What he did then was not ill considered, but it was cruel; he stroked his thumb along her cheekbone and her eyes opened. 

“_Vhen’an’ara _,” he said, my heart’s desire. “I have already given it. You do dapple the moonlight in my heart.” Her smile was her stripped to the bone, open and for him. He deflected with the joke and let her believe he was willing to strengthen their attachment. He took the offer of her openness and gave her nothing of value in return. “Right now, I would also like to give you the gift of not standing half naked, in the wind and prone to tripping on our own clothes.”

“There’s no one to see but the mountains, I like the cold, and I’ve been desperate to get you at least half naked, so as far as gifts...” He dropped to his knees and deflected again. He kissed the curved bone of her hip and she stopped speaking with a heavy breath. She looked down at him with desire as great as ‘the wide, wide world.’ He took all the care, sliding her pants back up her calves and thighs, that had been lacking in removing them. Her skin reacted, goose flesh that had not risen for the temperature did so in response to his touch. He looked up, expecting to see her eyes closed, savouring, but instead they were open and unflinching, watching him with such hungry adoration that he broke the contact first, using the excuse of standing and fixing his own clothes. Passion and lassitude faded as he was forced to see what he had done, what that brief, hard, unregrettable, regrettable moment would cost them. 

Knowing what he planned, he had still let himself weaken, bed her, and use a declaration of love as a distraction. How could anyone be forgiven that? And yet, and _ yet, _ what might this connection give him, aside from the not inconsiderable pleasure of her company, what might it gain him? 

“Have I mentioned how much like these?” she asked, dragging him back against her by the belts he had returned to his waist from where they had rucked up around his chest. She took a few steps back, pulling him back into her rooms. All he wanted, in that moment, was to let go again, to follow her and lay in the giant bed, and make her smile that bared, defenseless grin and laugh for him. Her attention and attraction were so clear, what could she deny him while wearing that smile? The last of his afterglow had fled, leaving him uncertain and full of the questions that would not stop coming. 

What would be the cost of giving in to what they both desired? How much worse would this make the final moment, when she learned the truth? Would denying her now lessen his influence? Endless variables, and the only thing he was certain of was his purpose; nothing could be more vital than the return of the Elvhen people. He had not planned for this and he needed time to think, time for the wild, rapid world to slow. He needed-he needed... Solas stopped, letting her step away from him, fingers still knotted in his belts, tugging forward. The smile faltered. 

“Inquisitor, you ha-” he grasped at excuses.

“-ve many duties to attend to. I know, they aren’t quiet.” She cut him off and finished, walking to the bed and putting her back against one of the posts. “All the way from _ lethallen _ to Inquisitor. And if I have duties to attend to, I imagine you have a lot to think about as well.” This time there was no joke to soften the disappointment in her voice. Already things had changed. “I meant what I said, Solas. I only want what you can give. This could be,” and her smile was sharpening, her tone more firm, she stood straighter. With her clothes and hair still in disarray from their wild coupling, she was already stitching herself back together. “This could all be another dream we shared.” 

She meant it. She would go back to treating him as any of the rest of her companions and advisors. She would be strong and clever and kind for him and nothing more and he… he found himself in front of her again, her hands in his own. 

“No, _ vhenan _, no.” His voice so much more certain and clear than his thoughts. 

She was willing to fix his mistake. _ Arthethan _, he tried to unknot motivations that made him say it. Pride, no longer being special to her, elevated by her interest. Desire, unexpectedly fierce. He wanted this leverage, to be close to her, to know her, to advise and be listened to by one so integral to his plans. And...because he wanted to see that softened expression again, wanted to know her as the others did not, to offer her what kind of solace and closeness he could, for as long as he could. Foolish. 

“_ Vhenan _, I do not want this to be a dream, but it was unexpected and sudden. I am not used to change coming so quickly.” She was watching him carefully, looking for uncertainty. He smoothed his expression and gave her none.

“Solas, you know how I feel.” She drew her hands out his and cupped the sides of his face, the heat and calluses of them firm against the soft skin. For a moment, he wanted to close his eyes and rub his cheek along them, but she kept her eyes on his, nearly unblinking. “I am a hunter. If you want to be chased, I’ll chase you.” His pulse sped at the thought of that. Unexpectedly fierce, indeed. “If you want my affection, it’s yours for the asking. But I don’t want to break my heart against yours if you aren’t sure, or if…” her frown was so thin. “If you’re doing this to humour me or to help buoy me up...Gods know I need your support, the support of all of you, but not like that. I’d _ never _ask that of you.” She moved one of her hands away and raked it through the love knots he’d made of her hair, it caught and she yanked it through. 

“No,” he said again, raising his own hands to pick loose one of the braids he’d snarled earlier. This time it was his impetus that moved them, he pressed her shoulder, guiding her to the bed. It had been long, very long, since he had had his own heavy braids to tend, but his muscles remembered. The coarse, thick hair felt good, familiar. “No. What I feel was not something I anticipated, but it is real. What I need from you is your patience, I am...unaccustomed...”

“To love?” She had relaxed as he smoothed out her hair, her voice already less guarded. It took so little from him to gain her trust. His hands curled. Delighted. Ashamed. 

“No,” he smiled, remembering. “No, I have loved before, but never so swiftly.” 

“You’re talking like we met last night, we’ve known each other for more than a year. And I’ve been panting after you nearly that long.”

“Is a year such a long time? No wonder you worry about a broken heart.” 

“If I waited years I’d never have gotten close to anyone, that isn’t how my life works. Anxious feet, busy days.”

“You left the Dales when you were still young?”

“Yes. Staying put hasn’t ever been for me.”

“And the Inquisition?”

“I thought we were talking about love.”

“We are talking about you. I’ve told you hundreds of stories and you have told me so few.”

“The Inquisition...it’s the best job I’ve ever had. Never have to stay in one place, good people, I can behead anyone I like,” she laughed quietly, “but I’ve never lasted at good jobs before.” She tried to turn her head to look at him, but he tilted her jaw back and began to twist her hair into the braids she kept to tame it. He watched her profile, eyes closed in pleasure.

“What about you? If we live, what will you do?”

Pleased, but not soothed enough to avoid difficult questions.

“We were talking about you and love,” he leaned closer, taking up more strands of her hair and speaking near her ear. He watched the hair on her neck raise in response loving the sight and hating how easily he used the word to distract her. This was necessary. This was a mistake. 

“And you need time. To think.” 

“Yes.”

“I can give you that, but I need this.”

“Someone to braid your hair? I’m sure Josephine would be pleased to assign you-“ she laughed, as he meant her to.

“No. Although, maybe, after some of the council meetings I wouldn’t mind...but, no. Think as much as you want, I won’t expect to pin you to my bed, but don’t pull away from me. I don’t want to lose you to thinking. Treat me like your lover and remember I’m waiting for you.” The braids were finished and she reached back and took one of his hands and placed it against the stubble of the bare side of her head, he stroked his fingers along it. “And it might not be chivalrous for me to point it out, but I’m mercenary not a knight, and we might all have our eyeballs eaten by Darkspawn tomorrow, so please, don’t think too long.”

****

“Inquisitor.”

“A little busy, Viv,” she said, voice strained, back braced against a massive tree, boots against the crumbling remains of a wall. She had nearly made it to the top of the collapsing structure but the last few feet were proving… challenging. 

“Too busy to say my _ entire _ name, despite being asked numerous times. I would accept Madam if you are truly under duress.”

“You could say that,” she reached forward, hand grasping for the artifact balanced on the top of the wall, her fingertips nearly there, nearly...not a chance.

“You _ do _ seem set on doing things in the most _ difficult _way possible, darling. I could hear your exertions from camp.”

“You could...” she tried to take a half step further up the moldering surface, foot slipping. No. Not that either. “...help? Give me a boost?”

“I think we can do better than shoving, my dear. Stay there.” The Inquisitor heard the sounds of scrabbling and the soft exhalation of breath followed by strong hands gripping her forearms. Vivienne’s masked, smiling face above hers, leaning over the edge of the wall.

“The rest of the way now, Inquisitor,” she said helping her over the lip of the structure. She lay flat on her stomach, catching her breath, while Vivienne brushed the dust off of her tunic and untied it from where she had it cinched over her leggings.

“Okay, how did you do it and when did you learn how to climb?” The Inquisitor asked, propping her chin on her arms and rolling her eyes up to stare at the other woman towering over her. 

“Do you think the Dalish have a monopoly on climbing? It’s hardly forbidden knowledge.”

“And _ that _would matter?”

“Rules have their place, of course, but I never thought they should apply to learning. Or to keeping me from the neighbor’s plums.”

“Practically apostasy, and at such a young age,” the Inquisitor said, mockingly scandalized. 

“I was nearly sixteen by the time I got high enough to reach them.”

“Persistent in your apostasy too, then,” the Inquisitor said, raising herself first on her forearms and then into a sitting position, taking the glowing shard into her hands.

“I _ do _ hope those are worth the trouble, given that I’ve seen you nearly break your neck on at least four separate occasions trying to obtain them.”

“Josie and Leliana are sure the Venatori are doing something with them in the desert. Whatever it is, we are either going to get it or make sure they can’t. Should be that’s even more important than forbidden plums.”

“Given that we can’t seem to _ get _ them in Skyhold, I wouldn’t be so certain about where my priorities lay, Inquisitor.”

“Hmm, true. The best fruit doesn’t seem to manage the trip well,” she put the shard into one pocket, stood, reached into another and withdrew an apple, one of the few fruits they could reliably get in Skyhold. “They aren’t as good as pears,” the Inquisitor said, taking a small knife and slicing it into quarters, offering half to Vivienne.

“One doesn’t wish to sound ungrateful,” Vivienne said, taking a bite, “but I’m sick to death of apple crumbles, apple pies and baked apples. I don’t suppose we could arrange the next emergency to happen somewhere habitable and temperate?” She gestured at the empty, rocky forest surrounding them. 

“We probably should be glad the rifts have been opening so far out, also should probably be glad we’re well provisioned, but I wouldn’t mind somewhere with a little more variety on offer.” They leaned against the crumbling edifice of the long abandoned bulwarks, facing each other and crunching the shared apple. She watched Vivienne, the line of her scaled tunic and peaked hat perfect despite the climb. Of all of their company, she was the most unquestionably beautiful. Poised, brilliant. The Inquisitor thought of her own clumsy attempts to get closer to her and Vivienne’s laughing, calculated response: “I don't see how that benefits me in the slightest, my dear, it’s absurd.” Faced with so clear a dismissal, she hadn’t tried again. “Do you miss it? The Court?”

“Hmm, sometimes. Aides de camp have their uses, but they’re absolute disasters at storing silk. Still, I’m hardly stultified. Despite our rather remote setting, I’ve gotten a _ surprising _ amount of intriguing done,” she laughed, low and controlled, “and there is something to be said for making envoys climb an actual mountain before you’ll see them.” She hadn’t broached the subject again, but at moments like this it was difficult not to appreciate the broad perfection of her cheeks and the critical sharpness of her tongue. “What I truly miss is the Circle, but even in Val Royeaux, that is lost to me.” 

The Circles. If they hadn’t been dismantled by magefire, rebellion and chaos, the Inquisitor might have tried to take them to bits, herself. The thought of being leashed by Templars and bounded in. No. Never that.

“I don’t think they’d suit me,” was all she said, thoughts suddenly less wistful. 

“Well, despite your _ many _ shining qualities, you aren’t a mage my darling and I can’t picture you in a Templar tabard.” 

“Wouldn’t match the fine elvish bone structure?”

“Wouldn’t match the attitude. I know you hate the idea of the Circles, I see your nose crinkle whenever I mention re-establishing them, ah!” she said, leaning forward and tapping her nail against the bridge of the Inquisitor’s nose. “There it is, that adorable disapproving rumple. You are as winsome as you are wrong.” 

“If the question of reinstatement ever comes down to the Inquisition, you know I won’t back it. I’ll let the Circles be a failed experiment, something that belongs in a dusty chronicle that lists the mistakes Thedas has made with mages.” She stared down Vivienne’s finger, meeting her eyes. 

“Because you fail to understand the _ potential _ of the Circles, what they have been, what they _ might _ be, properly managed.”

“Vivienne, I know you’ve seen the best of it-”

“_Status _ , Inquisitor. There could be a _ place _ for us in the world.” She stepped closer and took both the Inquisitor’s hands in hers. “I know you want everyone to be free and happy, my dear, but if things continue as they are now, we’ll all be trapped hiding away, waiting for angry villagers and ungoverned Templars to find us. Do you prefer _ that _ cage for us?”

“Vivienne, I won’t help re-shackle the mages for fear or for comfort.”

“Comfort?” Vivienne rolled her eyes, lively behind the recesses of the glittering mask. She let go of the Inquisitor’s hands and stepped back gesturing. “Do you truly think that is my main concern? Look where I am. No. It isn’t for comfort. But libraries, Inquisitor, of magical knowledge, _ teachers _ to show young mages how to harness their gifts. Do you want to see children scared of their own power? Helplessly trying to control forces they don’t understand? We can _ help _ them.”

“You know it will end up being mandatory, again. In a year, in ten, we’ll be right back to the Gallows,” the Inquisitor leaned back against the wall, putting distance between them. She tried to soften her posture, to not turn this into a full-flung argument. She almost wanted to let it, she’d had this conversation with nearly all of her advisors. So many of them wanted to _ modify _ the release of the mages, to give them _ limited _ freedoms. She was tired of being reasonable, but that wasn’t Vivienne’s fault. “I want to help the mages, Viv, but I won’t help them by tearing them from their families.” She was careful with her words, with her body language. “I won’t support it. You want a college, it’s yours. Former Circle mages as teachers? I’m sure we can find some who’d be thrilled. Books. Robes. Artfully gnarled wood for staves. All of it. But I won’t give you their ability to choose.” 

“Inquisitor-”

“I’ll fight till I’m nothing but scars and spite to keep the world safe from Corypheus, but when we’re done, I won’t hand it over to the Templars.” She gripped hands around the crumbling stone behind her, kept herself from turning them into fists. “I won’t hand the mages back to them, either.” She tried to lighten the refusal with a smile. “Even though it’s you asking me, Madam, and you know I don’t like refusing you.”

“Inquisitor, darling, I adore you, but I know the Circles better than anyone,” she shook her head, mask glittering in the moonlight. “I also know how people fear magic. This is a mistake. You’re setting little birds free into a room full of cats.” 

“Solas and Dorian think we can-”

“Oh, _ Dorian _ thinks?” Vivienne threw up her hands, in a gesture that looked more like one of the Inquisitor’s. “Because Tevinter has done an excellent work integrating mage and non-mage,” Vivienne shook her head, “and did you speak to him of the Tevene slave markets when you consulted him on the freedom of the mages?”

The Inquisitor was silent, she had asked him and his answer had been troubling, trying to explain away something like that as a simple difference in tradition, something that was unfortunate but had its place. The memory was a sore point she couldn’t stop worrying.

“Dorian just needs more time to see-”

“And Solas? You have grown very close to him,” Vivienne’s brows rose high. “When does he speak to you about the glory of unregulated magic? The passion and fire of _ true _ apostasy _ ? _” Her words were vague enough that she could have meant anything, her tone was not insinuating, but even under the mask, something in her look made it clear that she knew they were lovers. “You are a talented woman, but new to power. Just because someone is dear to you, doesn’t mean they know the best course of action. Oh, but they will try to convince you they do.” The Inquisitor knew, in the ache of every broken bone, in the stretch of every thick scar on her body that freeing the mages had been right. But. Ah, but…she thought about the soft words over the long nights and long journeys. About the Fade, the freedom there, how wrong everything they knew about magic was, and she had listened, intently. How much influence did he have over her? Vivienne was right about that much, she had never had to worry about being courted for her position before. 

“What do your other advisors say?” Vivienne asked. “I know Cullen worries about the abandoned Templars and sweet Josephine knows the value of compromise and slow, gentle change. Sera, Krem and Bull have a proper caution of magic, as fond as they are of me.”

Advisors. 

“Leliana, she spent her life in the Chantry. She agrees with me that it is time for the Circles to end. She isn’t new come to politics, or unfamiliar with the country or an,” she shrugged her shoulders and her fingers waived uncertainty, looking for the word “intimate advisor.” Vivienne coughed a delicate laugh at the term. 

“Mmm yes, Sister Nightingale did change her song after traveling with the Hero, another powerful woman who didn’t understand the need for measured change and what a wake of uncertainty she left behind her.” 

“Vivienne, you mean well but I won’t bend. Not on this. I’m sure as sure this is the course.”

The other woman sighed and shook her head again. 

“I can see this won’t be won by words, not even with the most convivial company. Darling, I hate to oppose you. I see the great things you have accomplished and I see the potential for many more, but on this? Your instinct and your council have led you astray. You will have my advice, but you will not have my support.” The Enchanter left her, then, taste of apples still on her tongue and uncomfortable thoughts lingering in her mind. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *rubs hands together* Some more angst and bad decisions and lead up to another NSFW scene in Chapter 3. It's a doozy. Also seriously Inquisitor, literally ANYONE else (except Cullen).

Solas tried to keep his word. He welcomed her regular visits to the Rotunda. He sought her out solely for the pleasure of her company, attended her when she left Skyhold. He encouraged her affections, wrapping an arm around her waist when she stood close to him. Others in their company with eyes to see noticed. Months passed. He did not return to her chambers and he fought with himself. Their courtship began to feel more Elvhan, stately, unhurried. As it felt more familiar it was harder and harder for him to convince himself that it was wrong and that he should step back, let her heal the hurt he’d done and make way for one of her other admirers. 

He smiled, he was far from the only one of their party that had been caught by her. Solas watched the careful way Cullen kept his distance, Bull’s appreciative huff of breath seeing her covered in dragon’s blood, Josephine slowly drew the feather of her pen across her lips whenever the Inquisitor perched on her desk and you hardly had to be a great spy to notice Sera’s interest. She proclaimed it and sat solidly in the Inquisitor’s lap. His response to them was as complicated as everything else regarding his relationship with the Inquisitor. Satisfaction, that she’d chosen him among all of these individuals he was beginning to realize were as exceptional as her, more bright, clear figures, distinguishing themselves from the pallid backdrop the world had become. Satisfaction turning to a wriggling guilt that she would be happier with one of the others, for as long as the world lasted. An utter aversion at the idea of withdrawing to allow it to happen. 

For a time, The Inquisitor was patient and she did not press, until they found the bandit fortress, that day by the river. 

“Can’t leave it,” the Inquisitor said, shielding her eyes with her hand and staring across the canyon at the crumbling fortress. “We can slice the throat of every bandit from here to Redcliffe but they’ll keep coming back if we don’t burn it all down.” 

“Isn’t that, like, why you have an army?” Sera asked, eyes following the small figures moving along the ramparts. The _ many _ small figures. 

“We’re going to need them for Corypheus, can’t let them get bled out on little problems like bandits.”

“Oh, but it’s right fine for _ us _ to bleed.”

“Yeah, it is. But only a little.” She squinted. “I want a closer look at the foundation. All these old keeps have hidey-holes and secret ways in, half the time you can creep in and be done before they know you’re there.”

“And if there isn’t an imaginary back door?”

“Bombs.” She said, already moving down the narrow path. “I’ll get Dagna to come out here with many, many bombs.” 

“Yeeeeh! Why can’t that be the one we do first?” 

“Because, I want another castle.” 

“You hardly use the one you have now, _ vhenan _,” Solas said, following them. 

“Heh, she promises she’ll patch the holes up on this one and put in more reliable plumbing,” Bull said from behind him. 

“No, I don’t. I capture real estate, you want luxuries like a roof without holes in it, talk to Josie,” the Inquisitor said, looking back over her shoulder at them. 

“If we do the dumb plan, I get to name this one,” Sera said, bumping the Inquisitor with her hip. “Call it: ‘Should Have been Rubble’ or ‘Sera’s Big Fucking Tower’ or something.”

“Hm. Maybe.” 

On more than one occasion after that the Inquisitor was right about the hidden entrances, saving them from the brutal fight this turned out to be. Not this time. They made a cold camp far out of eyeshot of the building and waited for nightfall. 

“Bull, you’re with me, the elves who can’t sneak stay behind.” 

“I sneak plenty,” Sera wrinkled her nose. “When there are proper walls and cobbles. How you know where all the trees are is weird.” She jerked her head at Solas. “And he might be half good at it if his head didn’t catch the light. Walks right quiet.” 

“Neither of you are any good at looking like anything but people creeping around,” Bull laughed quietly.

“Which is why they’re staying here.”

“It’s _ easy _not to look like people when you come with branches,” Sera grumbled.

The Qunari was nearly twice Solas’ height, but he had seen him move nearly as silently and unnoticed as the Inquisitor. He was right, half the trick seemed to be making your silhouette look like anything but a person. Solas had learned many skills, but this was not one of them. He would be a liability. 

“You, don’t set anything on fire and you, don’t fall asleep,” she said, and he stood in front of her, hands lightly resting on her shoulders. 

“_ Ethas na _,” go safely, “go silently and return soon.” 

“We’ll be back for you.” That smile lit up her face, the one that was for him only, for a brief moment. Then they were gone, lost in the night and Solas was alone with Sera, who had started humming and inspecting the draw on her bow. 

His feelings towards the only other elf in the Inquisitor’s inner circle were...complicated. Creation. His feelings towards everyone connected to her were becoming so. Sera’s rejection of the fool’s motley that were Dalish customs was sensible and he remembered the brushfire of rebellion of his youth too well to discredit her sentiments about the nobility. But when he tried to set her on the right path, she had slapped his hand away, more than once, treating him like an overstuffed _ hahren _, rather than someone who could give her everything she was looking for. A world that made sense, that she fit into. He looked at Sera and saw everything his choice had cost his people. What might she have been, properly raised and living with the magic that was her right? 

“She won’t dance around waiting for you forever, you know,” she said from her place on the ground, not looking up from her work. Her thoughts apparently on a very different track than his. 

He considered denying that he knew what she meant, or suggesting their relationship was none of her concern but…

“What do you mean?” He wanted to know. Knowledge was always worth having and Sera and the Inquisitor were close. 

“She doesn’t act all elfy elf like _ some _, but she’s one of those Dalish scouts, yeh? Likes to hunt, always going out with beard-y boots Blackwall and bringing back hunks of whatever tied to poles.”

“Usually if she cannot find another excuse to leave Skyhold,” Solas knew what the beginning of one of Sera’s long, narrative explanations sounded like. He also knew that if you practiced a little patience and _ listened _ they tended to be informative, despite often dipping into the perverse or turning out to be ‘jokes.’ He crouched down in front of her, perched on his feet, hands resting on his thighs. 

“Right, well you know she usually catches something, but one time real recent, she comes back with nothing but dirt and leaves all over her. I was giving her a hard time, yeh? Great Dalish hunter, can’t even get a rabbit. _ I _ can come back with a rabbit. She just shrugged and said sometimes hunts turn no good, chase goes sour, she called it. And she says only stupid, stubborn people keep going, then. The best thing for it is to pack up and come home. Heh, but to pull Blackwall out of the sinkhole he fell in first.” She snorted. “He was all mud up to his neck. So those sour hunts are what she’s thinking about. Not as it’d bother me much if you buggered things up with Grand Lady Quzzie, but she seems sweet on you,” she scrunched her nose and gestured at him, up and down. “Despite all of that. And might be she could convince you to take that staff out of your arse. Need real big pliers though. Huge. Hm and Harritt is kind of a shit and probably won’t loan you his.”

He rolled back from the balls of his feet to his heels, digesting what she had said and added the scatological to the list of places Sera’s digressions could reach. Still...instructive. 

“Thank you, Sera. I will consider what you have said.” 

The noise she made blowing her tongue at him lacked its usual force. Sounded almost half hearted, like she was doing it for the show of the thing.

The Iron Bull returned later, alone. Both of them stood, abruptly, turning to him.

“She’s fine,” he snorted and shrugged his shoulders, “probably fine.”

There was nothing to be found in the small hills nearby that she said looked like promising bolt holds. No grates, or doors or cracks in the foundation. So, Bull told them, she was going to climb the walls and open the gate for them and they had to hustle as stealthily as they could to be ready when she did. 

It would have been suicidally stupid, except that Solas was sure she could do it. Compared to the sheer cliffs and trees he’d seen her scale since they had begun traveling together, the keep with its pitted untended walls seemed manageable.

They did not wait long, crouched behind a hillock near the keep before they heard the crash of the gate. He thought he saw the white flash of the hard, hard smile she wore when she killed, but he might have imagined it.

Even with the gate open and the sentries surely dead, the fight was long. He loosed barrier after barrier, shielding them from the worst of the damage. Bull still took cut after stroke, each one followed by a roar and his opponent’s blood. Few landed a second blow. He saw Sera expend her penultimate arrow and switch to knives, keeping the last in reserve. Even Sera’s swift deadlines didn’t match his _ vhenan’s _. He had seen her spar and he had seen her fight. His pleasure at the sight of that grace had been the first thing to draw him to her. This was different. They were outnumbered and every cut had to count. It did. She was quicksilver. If she had lived in his time they would have called her a goddess of movement. Time and time again he lost the sight of her only to catch it again, followed by gouts of blood, her grin as bright and cruel as the winter sun. 

It lasted until past dawn, until he had no more strength to cast and the fortress was empty. Bull sat on the steps, legs splayed, Sera leaned her chin heavily on his shoulder. The Inquisitor stood above them, on a platform looking over the courtyard, they were all covered in gore, except him. The benefits of combat from a distance. She paced the small space while they caught their breath.

“Well I’m not staying here, it’s all creepy, now.” Sera said, not raising her head.

“Thought you wanted to name it,” the Inquisitor said, staring off over the parapets into the horizon, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“Yeah, ‘Old Creepies Corpse Pile.’”

“Alright,” she said, slapping her hands against her thighs. “We’re leaving. The rest of this _ can _ be a job for the army.” They walked a distance from the fortress, far enough for comfort and close enough to a river to be able to cleanse themselves. All of them were exhausted, except her. Nervous energy poured off her. Solas watched her walk ahead of them, fingers drumming on the hilts of her daggers, eyes scanning for dangers that did not emerge. Seeing the continued swiftness of her movements made him feel all the more drained. He would not have been able to summon a flickering light, the deep well of his energy was entirely drained and he leaned heavily on his staff to keep walking. 

“We’ll get the wood and the water, you set up the tents?” Bull asked, when they found somewhere flat enough to set camp, he was already gathering their flasks and the cook pot and handing them to Sera. Solas nodded pulling out the long, thin staves they used for the tents. Bull had brought two with them, he had been since early on, the unspoken arrangement being that Solas and the Inquisitor would share. Years of scouting had left her uncomfortable sleeping at night and they would while away the night with him telling her tales. He uncoiled the rope and listened to the tattoo of her fingers and her restless steps.

“Solas,” she said, after the others were out of earshot, he started to turn to face her and she was on him. The speed and the strength of her. He was flat on his back, with her straddling his hips, lips urgently on his jawline, hair falling across his eyes. And ah, he felt himself responding, hardening against the press of leather and chain, his hands reaching up to her, wanting to rip away what he needed to reach her and...rut on the ground like animals? Was this how the Elvhenan loved? Would this always be how it was between them? He pressed his hand against her chest, pushing her back. 

“No, _ vhenan _.” 

She paused, she had worked her way down to his neck, teeth and tongue leaving a wet, stinging line, he felt her breath against it. She sat up and looked down at him. The blood and soil from her armor had ground into the light cotton of his shirt. The battle had not touched him, but she had. She smelled rankly, sharp sweat co-mingling with his own and the meaty metallic stink of blood. She frowned and swallowed and swung her leg off of him.

“I’m sorry, Solas. I didn’t...I’m sorry.” She left him, on his back, magically exhausted, arousal fading, conflicted. Again. Always. Solas tried to listen to his own breath, to slow it and to quiet his disturbed thoughts. He did not know how long he laid there, quietly trying to husband his resources. He heard the sounds of her moving, boots suddenly so loud. He listened, finding it difficult to summon the energy to sit up. The clatter of chain. Cursing. Water. He finally roused himself to follow her. She was sitting by the river, legs crossed, face and hair wet, scouring her arms with water. Her boots and armor higher up on the riverbank, she was dressed only in the soft, sleeveless shirt and britches that she wore under the armor. The aftermath of the combat had soaked through to that as well. 

He moved next to her, making certain to make enough noise that she would not be startled and laid a hand on her bare shoulder. He felt her skin twitch in response. 

“Inquisitor, I wanted you to know-” 

“Don’t,” she said, not childing him for being formal. “Not right now. I need...when I used to travel…” she shook her head. “No. Nevermind. No excuses. I’m sorry I broke my promise. I’m no good to you right now.” She twisted slightly, pulling herself away. “We can talk later, if you still want to, but not now.” She did not turn to look at him, she did not offer any more, she unfolded her restless legs and dipped her bare feet into the water, reaching over to begin scrubbing them. He did not press further and withdrew back to the camp. Bull had returned, logs and kindling stacked in the middle of the clearing. 

“Well that doesn’t look good,” he said, eyes taking in the scattered tent poles, scuff marks in the dirt and Solas’ stained shirt. 

“It’s private, Bull.” Solas said shortly, moving to finish uncoiling the rope that he had let fall haphazardly on the ground. 

“Uh-huh,” he said shaking his head and walking back the way Solas had come, to the river and the Inquisitor. “Think I’ll go sluice off, too.” When Sera returned with the water, she only rolled her eyes and helped him finish setting up the tents. 

***

Her skin felt too tight. Every small noise boomed and she followed every motion with quick glances. She couldn’t keep her hands still, or her legs from bouncing and she wondered if it would be worth it to douse herself entirely, she’d stink like river water till they got back to a town with a bath, but the chill would feel good. 

“Hey Boss,” every small noise except the Iron Bull, apparently. She was half way up to her feet, small dagger drawn before she realized who it was. Her breath came out hard and she sank back down, re-sheathing the dagger. “Yeah. About what I thought.” He sat down next to her, shoulder brushing hers. “Sometimes it’s hard to come down from a good fight.”

“It _ was _ a good fight,” she said, fingers plucking at the grass, pulling it out by the roots and dropping it back on the ground. It had been. She’d been _ everywhere _ and body twisting between targets, answering every demand without a hitch, finding the spaces that she could take advantage of, the small weaknesses, the openings and strike and strike and strike. She smiled, you couldn’t get there every time, but when you could...perfect. But once she and Solas were alone, aie gods, that was a mistake. She shouldn’t have. She could have blamed habit or muscle memory or being a little battle crazy, but it didn’t matter. The look on his face. She shouldn’t have. 

“Hey, hey,” Bull said, his arm had gone around her shoulder, giving her a little shake. She didn’t know how long he’d been speaking. 

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, reaching up and rubbing under her eyes, only half the apology was for not listening. 

“It’s alright. I know that look, seen it on the Chargers, seen it on myself. You’re a merc, nearly as long as me if I guess right. You’ve been here before. What does your company do to come down?”

She turned and looked at him, brows raised. On the good days, when they came back, keyed up, so alive and with more energy than they knew what to do with...well, the sheer physicality and focus of a fight could easily be turned into something more intimate. 

“Uh-huh. Us too, sometimes, when we were out in the field, too far from any pretty farm boys. Or when things were too much to share with a stranger.” And the hand that had been resting companionably on her shoulder, the way they’d sat many times before suddenly changed in nature. He drew it down her arm and desire shot through her so deep she was paralyzed with it. He didn’t move again or do anything to strengthen the caress and she got her breath back.

“No, Bull,” and she shifted her weight so she wasn’t leaning against the bare skin of his chest. “Not like this. This is _ different _. They were my partners, we were all equals, except for the captains.” She didn’t know what the captains did on their crazy days. She was still too close to him and she wouldn’t. She had all the reasons in the world not to, the power imbalance, he was a spy, Solas, but it was tempting. She pushed off his arm and stood. “They all think I’m some god-thing and the Inquisition can’t be my fucking harem.” 

“Not sure what good a non-fucking harem would be,” Bull said, he didn’t stand, continued to sit loose limbed and calm and she wanted to climb into his lap or punch him or shove him into the river. And then join him. And then-no, no, she shuddered hard and forced herself not to think about it. “So I take it there haven’t been any pretty farm lasses for you since Haven.” 

“Oh sure, acres of them,” she started pacing. “Because there’s nothing rotten about swanning in at the head of an army as the living embodiment of their god and saying ‘hey fancy a quick dance with the may queen.’” He didn’t ask about Solas. Probably obvious how that was going. 

“Well now, there’s more than one way to get yourself grounded, don’t know if elf mercs like it was well as Qunari _ benhasrath _, though.” 

“Try me,” she said, shifting lightly on the balls of her feet. “Or one of us is going to end up in the river.” 

“Knife goes out of reach, nothing sharp until you’re less edgy,” he said, standing and holding out his palms in front of her. She threw it near her armor, feeling significantly more naked. “What we’re going to do is, you’re going to throw punches at my palms until you loosen up and then we’re going to spar, hard. I’ll tell you before we change up but once we start, I’m not going to let up until you tap out.” 

She nodded, squaring up and throwing a light, experimental punch. Her knuckles slapped satisfyingly against his palm. 

“And you think,” she alternated with the other fist, “that _ more _ fighting is going to wear me out.”

“It is the way I do it, Boss,” he laughed. “Now come on, you don’t fight unarmed often, but I know you can do better than that.”

“The secret,” she said, changing her stance to land a harder blow, “is to carry many small weapons, rather than one great big axe they can take away from you.” She couldn’t remember a time when she’d had to fight, properly fight, where she hadn’t had something sharp held in reserve. The thought was unsettling, but the slap, slap, slap and the tingle of pain was helping her focus, get her thoughts back; she didn’t feel quite so much like running half the way back to Skyhold. 

“Breathe,” Bull reminded her, “and harder.” She did, sweat starting to bead under her breasts, new adrenaline mounting the old, the sweet fighting clarity, where the world slowed down and there was just her body and the bodies she clashed against. He began moving his palms, changing the angle and height of the target, she focused down deeper. Harder, faster, breath coming out in deliberate controlled exhales, keeping herself from foundering, she could do this forever. Until Bull closed his fist around hers, stopping her short when she moved back. 

“Okay, Boss. Warmed up?”

She nodded, trying to pull her hand back. Bull held on, firmly. She drilled at Skyhold, but she hadn’t with Bull. She was tall, particularly for an elf, but he was head and shoulders above her and built like...well. She’d watched him with the Chargers. He fought smart and hard. She was good, but she knew she couldn’t beat him, not without surprise or poison and the willingness to kill him before he knew she was there. 

She was going to be beaten. Her blood which had been singing to fight, fight, fight now started beating flee, flee, flee. 

“Good. Now here are the rules, I’m going to grapple and you’re going to try to get away. If something hurts too much, or you know you’re licked, you tap out and we start again.” 

“Yes, ready.” He was fast. Her captured arm was against her back, jerked up, using all that muscle to hold her. A sharp, manageable pain. He wasn’t fast enough. She dropped down into a crouch before his other arm could pin her, and used the motion of the drop to hit the side of his knee. A started grunt of pain, but he didn’t let her go. She was up, still caught, twirling behind him, stabbing her elbow into his back. He levered her arm around his ribs, bending it the wrong way and the pain went from manageable to breath stealing, she gasped and slapped his back twice. He immediately released his grip and she came back to stand in front of him and held out her hand. 

“Again.” 

The pain and the exertion weren’t sexual. Well. They weren’t very sexual. It burned off the excess energy and she got closer and closer to escaping the various grips he put her into, as her head cleared and she could think rather than react. Finally, he had her on the ground, one knee pinning her lower back and she tapped as the pressure grew too intense and she realized there was no moving him. She flipped onto her back, licking the dirt off her lips. 

“Again?” He asked, crouching down next to her. She stretched out her limbs, feeling the ache and fatigue in them. 

“No,” she said, winded “I think I’m done.” He offered her a hand up, which she took, drained, but no longer twitching and on edge. “So that’s how the Qunari blow off steam?”

“Yup, one of them anyways.”

“Good way.”

“Yup, maybe I’ll ask you to return the favour.” 

“I want you to show me some of those holds and how to get out of them.” 

“Thought you might.”

***

Solas waited at their campsite for the better part of the afternoon, organizing his thoughts and their belongings. He knew they needed to discuss what had happened, his reaction and hers but he could wait until she was ready. Preferably until they were separated from their companions by more than the fabric of the tents. He wanted to explain his shock and disgust at finding himself once again out of control of his body and moving so swiftly. He wanted a hundred years and a world with magic like air, to show her how things _ should _ be. But that, that they would never have together. He tried to hone the explanation, how could he make her understand this without letting her know more than she should? Saying words like “disgust” were not likely to garner the response he wanted. 

When the Inquisitor returned, she was leaning on the Iron Bull’s arm, laughing again, moving more slowly, limbs limp. Bull was carrying her armor and her bloody clothes were muddier than when Solas had left her.

“Food?” she asked, hopefully, seeing the cook pot over the fire. 

“Yeh,” Sera said, gnawing on a piece of cured venison, “if you like one of Solas’ weird sweet soups.” 

“You know my favourite meal,” she said, settling next to Solas, but not pressing her knee against his or threading her arm around him. He was relieved, not sure how he would respond to the affection but also vaguely disappointed. He had come to expect her casual familiarity. 

“Yes,” he said, handing her a wooden bowl, “one you did not have to make yourself.” 

“And, I like your weird sweet soups,” she said, ladling out the thick, orange liquid. She said nothing more and he watched her out of the corner of his eye, she moved slowly, eating with no real sign that she tasted the food and winced when she turned her wrist. Bull laid her armor out outside her tent before joining them, looking calm, as ever, and just the slightest bit self-satisfied. Solas was, he allowed, curious.

“Anyone object to me taking night watch,” the Inquisitor asked, “I’m all done in.” No one did. If they needed to post watches, she usually kept the last one, dark to dawn. She had told him it was a hold-over from her days scouting, more familiar and comfortable with a night watch. In this case, it also meant she would be out of their tent before he usually slept. She was giving him space, treating him carefully. They needed to discuss what had happened. She walked towards the tent, looking down at her bloody armor. “Anyone filled with a bone deep desire to be a loyal squire and help their mighty leader take care of her kit?”

“Not fuckin’ likely,” Sera said, snorting, “last I heard, in Skyhold, you were talking a big talk about every man needin’ to clean his own boots, yeh?”

“Who needs a whole person to take care of their clothes,” Bull said, mimicking the Inquisitor’s voice, Sera chimed in at the ends saying the last in unison: “where is the freedom in that?”

How many times had they heard her ask that question? In disgust about the Circles, in jest when Josephine tried to assign her a valet, she believed the only ties worth having were the ones you chose and continued to choose. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the Inquisitor grumbled, picking up the armor and pulling it into their tent, “wake me before dark and I’ll deal with it.” He heard it clatter in the corner of their tent.

Later, Solas lay alone and restless. He tried to breathe slowly, to allow his thoughts to rise and then let them go, but sleep would not come. He had thought to wait until they returned to Skyhold to speak to her, but the night was quiet and he could hear the chorus of Bull and Sera’s snores, they would be alone. He moved to the fire, still burning low, quiet on bare feet. She was not there. He looked around the clearing for her, nothing. 

“Inquisitor?” he said, softly. A moment later, a pine cone landed at his feet, causing him to look up at the trees that circled their camp. She was up high in the branches, her face partially obscured by pine needles. 

“I thought we might talk,” he said, looking up the trunk, feeling foolish. 

“We should,” she agreed, voice carrying down to him, “join me?”

“I think that would be unwise,” he said, measuring the distance with his eyes. The woman was forever perched on something precarious.

“You need to let me teach you to climb,” she said, already starting move her way down the tree, branch to branch, “what kind of elf didn’t learn? Sera isn’t Dalish, either and she can at least shimmy up a drain pipe.” She continued her way down. “And if you know a better way to startle people trying to steal from a seemingly unguarded camp, I’d like to hear it,” she extended her long body from the final branch, before letting herself drop, with a soft thump an arms length from him. She smiled at him crookedly, face flushed with exertion, firelight painting her gold.

He kissed her.

The skin of her lips was chapped and her breath came out in a startled sound and he reached up his hands cradling her face between them, fingers tracing restless circles over her temples and into her hair. For a moment his fitful, dashing lover was still and real in his hands. The cool night air, the susurration of the river, the tackiness of the pine resin on her face. Her mouth, her skin. The long moment was indescribably precious to him. 

She pressed her fingertips against his chest, barely touching and stepped back.

“That,” she cleared the huskiness from her voice, “doesn’t count as talking,” her smile caught the light and she leaned back against the trunk of the tree, “even the way you do it. Solas,” she sighed out a long breath and he loved the taste of his name on her mouth, that name he had stopped hearing so long ago. “I want to say I wasn’t myself, but ah _ vehnan _ , I was. It was all wrong and _ ir abalas _,” she apologized, and he loved hearing that rare elhavn from her as much as his name.

“_ Ma vhenan _,” he said, stepping closer, reaching out his hand for hers. “I do not think I have explained myself and my reservations to you well.” She took his hand and rubbed her thumb over his knuckles, long continuous motions.

“Out in the wide, wide world,” she said, the way she always did when she talked about her years with the mercenary companies. Solas wondered if she was deliberately using the traditional way the Dalish described the world outside the constantly moving camps of the Dales or if it was something she did without noticing. He could have stopped her, then, tried to salvage something from his half formed explanations, but he liked to hear her speak and he rarely heard her tell stories. “I knew a woman, she was a runner for a large company. They’d hired us and a few other groups of scouts to help fill their ranks for oh, some big clash between two nobels,” she waved her free hand, dismissing them as unimportant, “she coordinated between us and the rest of the force. Came to be we were often thrown together, tides of war,” she snorted, “or tides of squabble, in this case. We got to be quite well acquainted,” she smiled at the memory, “haven’t met anyone faster in a foot race, I never came close. Ran like it was the only thing,” she cleared her throat, pulling herself back from the memory. “Anyways, she liked a kiss and a cuddle, but no more than that. It was just her way, I didn’t like her any less for it, didn’t look forward to her company any less. And I wouldn’t like you any less, either, if that were how it was.”

They stood quietly, for a time and he would rather have kissed her again, than try to find the balance between what he wanted, what he should do and the lies he would tell. 

“What happened to her, your fleet lover?” he asked, interested, but also wanting to delay. 

“Oh, we went our ways,” she looked out into the dark woods, “it’s how it goes with these things, you meet for a campaign, spend the season looking for each other through the press and then it’s over, or the company doesn’t get paid in time and you storm off, or they don’t need your specialties anymore and you move on,” she shrugged, “a lot of people talk about opening a little tavern somewhere, together, or going home to the family farm. Some do. More don’t.” She looked back to him, catching his eyes and holding. “You know how it is, having feet that need to leave.” 

That was too close to the truth, to what he planned. 

“It might be a little like your friend,” he said, laying a kiss on the back of the hand he still held. Suddenly, _ this _ was the comfortable topic, “but, it is more tradition.”

“Need to be bonded to a girl before you bed down? I’ve heard of all kinds of backwards traditions like that since I started traveling.” For the barest second she looked at him seriously, before the corner of her lips twitched.

“If so, it is somewhat late for that concern,” he said, her half hidden smile coaxing one from him. “No, where I’m from, it is,” so many pitfalls, so easily avoided if he could just bring himself to let her go, and still, _ still _ his tongue betrayed him, unwilling, “very different, peaceful, it is not unusual for us to live long, uninterrupted lives. Our manner of living is slow, our courtships and the act of love unhurried. And for me, in this, I was perhaps a touch slower than most.”

“It sounds very,” he saw her searching for a word that would not offend. To his ever moving lover, dancing joyously in constant upheaval this description could not have seemed appealing. In many ways, it had not been for him, either, “...pastoral.”

“It was very beautiful and very different,” he said.

“But you left.”

“As did you.”

He watched her shift, ever uncomfortable with the topic of the Dales.

“I loved my home, Solas, and my people, but I couldn’t stay. I _ couldn’t _,” she let out a sharp breath, “all these years later and I still feel like a traitor for saying it, for leaving my place there.”

“It is not wrong to feel a certain regret for the right choice, _ vhenan _. The wide, wide world is better for having you in it.”

She closed her eyes and he watched her collect her thoughts, putting the uncertain comfort of ‘home’ away.

“We were talking about you and your customs, not the Dales. Solas, I want to know you, what you need. I don’t want to make the same mistake, again.”

“It is strange to talk about. I am accustomed to partners being familiar with how things are done. We...move slowly, deliberately. Sex is a matter of anticipation and ceremony. We would never engage in it without a long prelude and certainly not unwashed, after a battle. I have grown accustomed to the blood we spill and the scenes in the Fade are hardly without their turmoil, but in this context,” he shook his head.

“Not good.”

“No, it was shocking and to feel myself _ want _ to continue, despite it. I gave up many of my people’s ways to travel, but I do not know that I want this to be one of them.” 

“Solas, you know I don’t think people should give up hunks of themselves to belong. Where is the freedom in that? I’d never ask you to. I love you now, as this,” she reached her hand up, resting it on his chest, she said it so freely, so certainly, and she had no idea who or what she was claiming to love and even now, he would not tell her. “If you try to teach me, I’d try to learn.”

“It is a thing that takes time and you have many calls upon yours, Inquisitor.”

“I’ll clear my plans and we’ll lock the doors. Important traditional holiday on whatever day that is, very private ceremonies to be performed.” 

He laughed and should have been looking for ways to avoid deepening this connection, but instead all he could do was anticipate their return to Skyhold. 

***

He didn’t come to her after they arrived at Skyhold, but there was a note on her desk when she finally made it back to her rooms. She recognized Solas’ thin, light handwriting, he always wrote as though he was afraid to commit the lines to the page. 

You recently spoke to me of the most revered festival of _ Vir Adahlen _. Remind me,

again, of the date and I will, of course, join you in celebration. 

Yours, waiting,

-∫

She traced the long curve of his initial, fingertips tingling, thinking about having his skin under them again. _ Vir Adahlen _. The strength in being joined together. The thought of it made her body clench, expelling a long sharp breath. She managed to catch Josie before she escaped the council chamber. 

“Josie,” she said, voice strained, “I’m going to need tomorrow’s schedule emptied out there's something important I need to do. It’s private. Traditional.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another NSFW chapter, this one is well...it's pretty long.

Solas kept their appointment, he knew that he should not, that nothing good could come of it and yet he did not hesitate. He told himself there were some mistakes you made. She had specified a meeting unusually early, for her, giving them more time. The key was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, he locked the door behind him. She was sitting in front of the fire, breeze from the open balcony door toying with her hair, bare feet curled under her, a moment of surprising stillness. Even in profile, he saw the corner of her mouth turn up into a smile when she heard him. So little. It took so little to spark that joy in her and in that moment he wanted nothing more than to stoke it, shoving aside other concerns, forcing himself not to think of them. Not now, not with her waiting.

“Solas,” she said, such a sweet sound, he followed it, sitting next to her, she shifted position, closing the small distance between them, the line of her thigh against his, “I’m glad you came.”

“_ Vehnan _, there was no doubt of it,” he said, wrapping his hand over her knee. There had been a great deal of doubt. There had been calculation. There had also been desire. All the agonizing had led him back to her door. They sat quietly, Solas closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of her; the soft hum of satisfaction as she leaned closer against him, shoulder behind his, her chin resting against his shoulder; the rasp of leather against cloth; the long slow breaths she took so near his skin. She did nothing further, made no attempts at caresses or kisses, just kept close and in that deliberate calm, he felt her determination to keep her word. To try to learn. 

“Speaking in Elvhen is uncomfortable for you,” he said, not opening his eyes.

“It’s a tangle,” she said, shortly. One evening he might try to unpick that knot, but he wanted to use this time she had carved for them differently. 

“You asked me to teach you how it is for my people, _ our _ people, really,” he leaned his weight against her and reached his hand back to touch the familiar long jawline of their shared lineage, the light touch and closed eyes making it easier to ignore the differences, “you could have been one of us.”

He felt the twitch of her cheek against his palm and he wasn’t certain if it was the beginnings of a smile or a frown.

“Mmm, yes, if things were otherwise than they are, picture me in a tidy little cottage, trading eggs with the neighbours down the lane,” a smile, then.

“We were insular, perhaps, but less rustic than you seem to imagine.”

“My dam warnin’ me I was spending too much time with that dreamer boy,” her voice took on the twang of Fereldan farmers. “She says his eyes are always lookin’ outside the village, no matter that things here are nice as nice and neat as a pin.”

“_ Significantly _ less rustic,” he said, but he was smiling, too, “though I expect your mother might have warned you about me,” all Dalish mothers did, afterall. 

“She’s years too late, now,” she said, turning her face to be fuller against his hand, “is this all part of another plot to get me to speak elvish to you?” He didn’t need to see her face to picture the quirk of her brows, he could hear it in her voice, “if that’s all you want,” her voice lowered and she blew a light breath along his neck as she moved her mouth closer to his ear, his pulse sped and he stayed very still, “we could feed and water the _ allhadam _ ,” she said in their language, using the bastard Dalish word for the druffalo, neither the word, nor the beast had existed before he slept and yet he laughed. Even before he slept, before the Fade, he could remember few who made him laugh like his brilliant _ vehnan _. She moved to face him, crossing her legs under her and looking hard into his now open eyes. 

“It doesn’t hurt me to speak it, Solas,” she said, in the Elvhen language as the Dalish knew it, so similar, but so heartbreakingly lacking. She sighed, “but I don’t do it often,” the smile soured, once again she had lightened his heart and his request had weighted hers, “there is so _ much _-” he did not want to see that expression now, not when there were so many sweeter things they could do. He cupped her cheek in his hand again.

“A tangle,” he said, forestalling her, letting her know it did not need to be now.

“Yes,” she said, brow unknotting. 

“I did not ask to prod old wounds,” he said, continuing in their kindred language, when he first woke, the Dalish he found had said he spoke like their ancient stories, he had changed his manner of speech, trying to mimic them. Even still, when he first attempted to speak to the Inquisitor in Elvhen she had raised her brows and said he need not to be so formal with her. She had said it in the common tongue. It had taken weeks before he had first caught her unawares and tricked her into responding in their tongue. “You asked to learn, and I would find certain concepts easier to explain in Elvhen.”

“So, do. But you still sound like you’re reciting lore to a Keeper,” she said, in the same. 

“And if,” and it was his turn to raise his brows and lean in close, chest nearly brushing hers, “I used it to tell you how our people make love?” She froze as he kissed the corner of her mouth lightly, barely touching and sighed when he withdrew, skin flushed, he wanted to see it spread to every inch of her naked skin. 

“I would be open to having my mind changed.” 

“Come, then,” he said, standing, taking her hands, moving her to the bed and sitting her on the edge of it. He stood in front of her, the bed high enough that they were nearly at eye level, and while she did not reach forward to pull him after her, he could see impulse in the twitch of her hands in the sheets. “That,” he said, drawing his fingers over hers lightly, “is what our people did, restrained themselves, extended that feeling of longing,” he moved them over the sliver of wrist left uncovered by the muted, fitted tunic she wore in Skyhold, “for as long as we could,” from the fine bones at the back of her hand to the soft skin on the inside of her wrist, resting them firmly against it, he heard her sharp intake of breath, “making a touch that would seem circumspect and chaste more intimate.” He lifted her hand between them, eyes meeting hers, unwavering, as he pressed his lips against the same spot, causing her to do what she so rarely did, breaking eye contact first, lids closing. He watched the reaction play over her face, felt it in the tension in her hand. “It could last days upon days,” years, centuries, “watching your lover become more lost in wanting,” he rested his hand on her collarbone, ball of his thumb slipping between the high collar of the shirt and running along the hollow of her throat, he felt her skin growing hotter and the deliberately steady breaths under his hand.

This. This was what he wanted. The feeling of having her come unmoored, little by little, until there was nothing else for either of them, no plans, no future, only skin and driving need. 

“Oh,” she said, voice a groan, “Solas…”

The rawness in that _ sound _ pressed him forward, hips and the growing hardness of his prick pushed against the mattress, her knees lightly touching his sides, reminding him of the balcony and that one bright instant they had shared. He wanted it again. Now. His mouth hovered over sweat beading at her throat and he wanted to lap it off her skin to taste her-no, no. He closed his eyes, not letting himself see the writhe of her hips or that tantalizing line of throat. No. He would not be tricked by the quick world again. He would wait. _ They _ would wait and he would have what he had been yearning for. 

They stayed poised like that, her pressed halfway back against the bed, propped on her elbows, him over her, weight on his hands, their chests only lightly touching, his mouth the barest inch from her throat, breathing the salt scent of her in. Leather and chain and this close to her skin the strong lavender soap they made in Skyhold. When he trusted himself again, he moved up, letting himself draw his lips along the edge of her jaw, until he reached the cool smooth metal rings in her earlobe.

“I want,” she said, voice low and cracked, “to touch you.” 

“Can you?” he asked, letting his lips brush her ear as he said it, “can you do it like this?” He heard her nails scrabble against the blankets.

“Yes,” she hissed, “yes.” He moved back, watching her. Her eyes were still closed, body arched, legs akimbo, thick hair thrown back, already unruly, and it took much to move away from the sight. She swallowed and blinked open her eyes, hungry and keen.

“Sit,” she said, still finding her voice, “facing away from me.” He did, legs resting against the side of the bed, listening for her movements, hoping to soon, soon feel her touch. And this was right, too. The need was meant to be shared, he wanted to be as lost in it as her. He bided.

She could be so silent. She rarely was in Skyhold, but he knew it from their travels and he knew it now. There was no warning to her touch and it was exquisite. Gentle nails ran from his temples down to the nape of his neck, sending an unexpected shudder through him. One of her arms snaked around his chest, cradling him against her while his body reacted.

“Shh, quiet, my heart,” he felt the wet heat of her words low on his neck as her free hand moved, back and forth, toying with short hairs on his scalp, her breasts warm against his back.

“Yes,” he said, voice tight. She laid a line of soft kisses up the back of his neck and he found himself trusting the weight of his suddenly limp body to the strength of her arm. He was felled by the perfection of it, the touch, the precipitous safety of her arms. “Ah, my heart, my blood, my home” the words he said were nearly a sob, the sweetness of it, Elvhenan, he had _ missed _ it, had been so alone and she, she, she, her lips only stopped their soft motions along his skin to murmur to him.

“You are,” she breathed behind his ear, “my path,” he wrapped his arms around the one holding him and she drew him tighter to her. He felt her legs part behind him and he ached, from his scalp to the head of his rigid cock “my sweet,” her hips and thighs pressed against his, he was wrapped entirely in her warmth, “my home.” In that moment, he _ wanted _ to be. To promise her he would always, always be home and heart to her, but he kept those words locked away. His eyes closed and they held just so until his breathing slowed again and he grew more used to the full, unhurried touch of her. He waited for the moment of frenzied lust that was so much more than simple ardor ebb away. She cupped his cheek in her hand, turning his face towards hers. He saw _ that _ smile on her lips and had to force himself not to make promises all over again. She kissed him, the pressure of her lips as soft as her footfall when she hunted, as delicate as the dresses she had refused and as sweet...as sweet as her lips, what could be sweeter than her lips?

“I want to see you,” he said, the heat of his desire banked, back under his control, but not doused. Her smile turned bright with lust as she unwound herself from him.

“How?” she asked.

“Entirely unclad,” he said, standing and drawing her back onto her feet, “unobstructed and for a long, long time.” He had never seen her, not truely, their living situation put them in close quarters, but that meant that at any moment she was partially dressed there were others present and the thought of being caught staring by the likes of puppy loyal Cullen, who followed her with hungry eyes, or Sera with her cruel, ribald tongue, no; and he had barely seen a handspan of her skin in their last, frantic encounter, but now, now she took his hands and placed them on the first of the many fastenings of her garment. He kissed her throat when he bared it, letting himself follow his earlier urge, running his tongue along the hollow, along the hard curve of her collar. The taste of her sweat, her skin making him snake one arm around her waist to press her tight against him, her hips cradling his. She turned her head, moaning half formed words and giving him more skin taste. Only the promise of seeing more of her let loosen his grip. He reached the first scar when he uncovered her shoulder, ugly, round and thick, mirrored on her back, the further he stripped her, the more he found. He played his fingers over a thin ridge of lighter tissue that marbled the skin over her breast band.

“It’s why the high collar and the long sleeves. Some of our guests don’t like to be reminded of what I am,” she said, unselfconsciously pressing her hand over his, holding it against the scarring and the upper curve of her breast, “me...well, I think they tell a more relatable story than the blood writing and they don’t have a problem with that.” She snorted, "but who knows, they may have me in an Orlesian mask before this is all done.” Those vivid, too telling whorls that criss crossed her face, she had no idea what story they truly told. “Once I’ve got all the right people on my side and they’re in too deep to change their tune, _ I’m _ going to change back into a vest and tights.” She took half a step back from him and continued to undress, slowly, his hands felt bereft and he wanted to taste her again. He watched the sliver of skin down the center of her body grow longer as she unfastened clasp after clasp, she raised her hands to the parted fabric at her shoulders and began the motion to shrug it off-

“Wait,” he said, hoarsely.

“Yes?” she said, thumbs caressing the fabric where she held it, he slid down onto his knees in front of her and ran his hungry hands up the skin she’d bared, not letting himself touch anything still clothed. 

“Your mouth,” she said, followed by, “yes, yes,” as he kissed the skin of her stomach, mouthing it and finally bit, she gasped then, a high sharp sound, “ah, yes, love, yes. More.” He moved up the long line of her torso, stopping her when she moved to shuck the shirt from her shoulders. 

“No, my heart,” he said, touching the back of her wrist, “slowly, please.” She leaned her damp forehead against his, breath shaky, not finding the steady rhythm she had before. 

“With me,” he said, taking in air slowly, holding it and releasing. “Come back from that crest, come back here, with me.” It took time, but he felt the hot tension leave her. He stepped back and gestured to her hands, which still held the leather of her shirt. “Do not stop.”

Her smile, the flicker of a bird’s wing, and she turned her back to him, denying him her breasts and belly and eyes and the damned hollow of her throat that he wanted back under his teeth and tongue. She inched it over her shoulders, as he wanted, as he had asked and careful breathing and ancient self control did not stop him from wanting to turn her around and _ see _ her. Before he did, the shirt fell to the floor, followed by the breast band and he was taken with the sight of her spine, smooth of any scarring, a long unbroken curve down her back and ah, abruptly stopped by the waist of her pants. He reached out his hand to trace it with two fingers, making her gasp, and run them across her shoulder blade and the firm contour of her muscled arm. He stepped forward, his arms going around her shoulders, he started to pull her closer, but she shook her head.

“Nnhmm,” she said murmured, reaching back and pulling on the thong he wore around his neck.

“Do you not wish to be bitten?” he asked, hands drifting lower, trailing close to the breasts he had never seen.

“Not,” she said, thong trailing through her fingers as she stepped away, back still to him, “by your jewelry.” Her hands moved to the front of her body, hesitating over clasp at her waist. “Is this still what you want, Solas? To see me?”

“Yes,” he said. His hands had clenched at his sides. The sound of the leather sliding against metal in response shook him. He was all pulse and he was speaking, barely aware of it, “my heart, please, I need-please,” barely coherent, as she slid the fabric down over the rounded curve of her ass. He lost the words entirely when she stepped out of her pants and turned to face him, arms open, frigid white light from window illuminating her. He was torn between desires, as he always seemed to be with her, wanting to watch her, memorize those hard, striking features and to hold them so tightly he would be able to see nothing. He wanted to drink his fill of her. He wanted this to last the eternity that would take.

The Andrastians said the Inquisitor had been chosen by a god and in this, they were only wrong about which one. 

***

She stood in front of him, mother naked, the slow strip had been...different than the fast tumbles, or even the more leisurely afternoons she had enjoyed other lovers, but it was impossible to feel self-conscious faced with the heat of the need in Solas’ eyes. His touch, his kiss had affected her so so strongly, she loved seeing him just as taken with her. She stretched her arms above her head and turned slightly, letting him see her in profile, feeling her skin prickle, equally with cold as with yearning to have his hands back on her. The high, wordless cry he made in response made her nipples tighten. Yes. This was worth the effort.

“Solas,” she said, moving closer, drawing one finger along the line of his cheek, “open your eyes, _ look _ at me,” his breath caught, strangled, but he did, those usually heavy lidded eyes wide, nearly panicked, “touch me,” she said, opening one of his clenched hands and placing it on her shoulder. And her sedate, meandering lover pulled her body against his in a move so fast it was almost a flinch, hands hard against her back, tongue suddenly in her mouth. She groaned, stomach clenching as she felt the press of his cock hard against it. She ate at his mouth, surely now, yes, now, and her hands moved under his shirt, wanting the soft pale skin of his stomach in them. Just as swiftly, his long fingers circled her wrist, stopping her, mouth pulling back from hers.

“Not yet,” he said, still tight against her, hunger still as obvious as hers, “come back with me,” his breath started to even out, and she struggled to match him, slow the speeding thrum of her heart and not push him back onto the bed. Not like that. He’d asked. She shuddered, head to toe, sweating despite the cold. He stroked long lines down her back until she could speak again.

“This is getting...difficult,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, voice damnably calm, “it is supposed to be. Mastering our instincts is what sets us apart.”

“And the fact that my knees feel half gone?” she said, licking her dry lips. 

“Also perfectly normal,” he said, followed by a deep chuckle that didn’t help keep herself in check. God’s tits she _ wanted _ him. She _ always _ wanted him, but now with him so close and his desire sparking off of her, gods above and gods below the need was as hard as stone, as hot as a forge, as sure as the stars. He moved them backward, not letting her go until she was perched back on the bed and still he stayed close, she could feel the heat radiating off his body and wanted to rub herself against it. She laid her cheek against his chest, forcing herself to be still. 

She’d heard more than one of her companions chiding Solas for the simple clothes he wore, with the carts of cloth and finery they’d received from Orlais, no one in the Inquisition needed to dress modestly. She’d thought the same until she’d first touched him. The deceptively homespun looking fabric turned out to be softer and more plush than anything they had in their stores. He looked like a farmer while he was dressed like a prince. He’d smiled at her shock and told her it was a gift from home and asked her to not give away his secret.

“Give me the same,” she said, rolling her eyes up to meet his and trailing her hand down his stomach, searching for the hard line of his slim hips. “I’ve never seen more than a blink of you before you cover up again. You’ve never played cards with us.” He laughed that laugh that made her clench her thighs.

“The benefits never seemed to outweigh the drawbacks, and the one member of our company I had more than a passing curiosity about, I wanted to see in other circumstances,” he said, stepping back and finger painting a graceful curve in the air, tracing the sight of her. 

The jawbone came first, placed carefully on her dressing table, one day, she’d winkle the story of that from him, not today, not today, not when she could watch his long, thin fingers unwind the belt from his waist, watch it slither through them to the floor. She was quickly losing the ground she’d gained in the control of her desire. He moved to draw up the hem of his shirt and she stopped him. 

“I want to,” she drew him forward, settled him standing in front of her, so she could kneel on the bed, a breath away from the skin she uncovered. This close, her nose burned pleasantly with the scent of him, the clean, harsh smell of herbs he used to mix his paints. His skin rasped like velvet under the roughness of her callouses, things had changed so much over the past few years, she was encouraged to touch so many fine things, now. She dragged her thumbs over the gentle curve of his stomach, the soft flesh yielding to her touch, she wanted it in her mouth, she forced herself to continue moving upwards, instead, taking the tunic with her as she moved. He was completely unmarred, no evidence of careless dodges or tattoos written in his skin.Where had he hidden all these long years to remain so unmarked? She let herself rub her thumbs over his nipples, as hard as hers, to see the sight of him buckling. He leaned over her, hands steadying on her shoulders, panting, and she had to move him to finish stripping him. She drew the soft fabric over his shoulder, letting herself brush the nape of his neck with her hand while she pulled it over his head and threw it haphazardly behind him. 

She had found her knees again and stood, walking behind him, trailing fingers over his shoulders, so broad to have so little muscle, the perfect, pale expanse of his skin finally broken by dark freckling, like tracks in the snow. When she finished her circuit around him, she took his chin between her fingers and tilted his face down, barely kissing him, all she could manage without being tempted to wrap herself around him and not stop. She placed her hand along his stomach and the waist of his pants. 

“Yes?” she asked, stroking back and forth, just above where she knew he was pressed hard against his clothes. He nodded, eyes closed again, skin hot and shivering. She undressed him with all the care their first time had lacked until there was nothing between them. When she had slid his bare feet free, she looked up at his body from where she knelt on the floor and he was, ah gods, she followed the sight of the fine, light hairs on his thighs to his cock, hardened into a perfect crescent...his body so pale and…

“You’re the moon,” she said, barely coherent, chest tight, throat dry, thighs wet, she wavered for a moment, trying not to move, but ah, ah, she needed to… She stopped herself after pressing a kiss against the base of his shaft, going no further but wanting to swallow him down. His response echoed through her chamber, hand resting on the back of her neck and she wasn’t sure if it was to stop her or urge her on. Her hands had found the backs of his thighs, holding them, she turned her face to rest her cheek against his hip and closed her eyes. His fingers stirred against her hair, even that soothing motion igniting passion so hot she shook with it.

“Love, go gently for me,” he said, words deep enough she could barely hear them. She nodded one, twice, convulsively, not trusting sight or words. He moved under her hands, sliding down her body, to the floor next to her, each brush of his skin against hers forced interrupted groans from the back of her throat. This time his gentle voice and controlled breaths didn’t bring her back, her body wouldn’t stop thrilling and yearning. “Come with me,” he said, sounding untouched while all she wanted was to _ touch _ him. He pulled her to her feet, back to the bed and laid her on her back. He stroked her neck, ran fingers down her side, brushed them over her thighs and she was lost in it, gasping, body arching. “Go slow for me, my heart,” he whispered against her ear, fingertips grazing between her legs but not firmly, not enough, not enough, “this is how the Elvhen are meant to love,” another unfinished caressed. She gasped,

“I can’t, Solas, gods,” her hands were desperate to be on him, her clit pulsing so hard it hurt, “I can’t.”

“Shh,” he sucked the lobe of her ear into his mouth and it wasn’t enough but it made her hips buck, intensifying the ache, “you can, show me the will that the world has broken around,” she shook her head, all she had to show him was a need that pinned her to the bed and enough of that will to keep her promise, she tried. 

***

Once he found he could not bring her down from the crest of desire again, he kept her on the edge of it. He moved his touches, not giving her enough to fall into the deep pool of orgasm. Time and time again she cried “I can’t,” and he whispered in her ear and kept her wanting. She writhed for him, body tense and so responsive he could have continued forever. But running his tongue along the hard plane of her stomach he saw the glistening wetness along the inside of her thighs and all the endless years of being the master of his own will did not keep him from sucking the taste off her skin and then he was as lost as her, tongue inside her, barely able to stop himself from moving upwards and finishing it, he murmured endearments against the coarse hair and hot, slick skin, while she gasped and sobbed above him. Finally and still too soon, his own need grew too great, prick raw against the coverlet, wanting to be bathed in the same sweet slickness that coated his tongue and lips, he slid up her body, pressing himself between her legs, not entering. 

“Now?” he asked, grinding himself against her, and she groaned, deep in her throat, her legs wrapped around his waist, growling an affirmative noise, tilting up her hips, long past words. This time was different, he gave himself all the time he needed to feel the wet heat of her body closing over the head of him, felt her rocking under him, trying to push him deeper. Yes, deeper, but slowly, so slowly, he braced himself on his forearms, closing his eyes and focusing on the rings of pleasure tightening around him as he thrust further inside her. Even at this pace, she came before he was fully seated in her, her long, harsh, cry startled him, eyes opening even as he drove himself in the rest of the way.Her hands knotted in the bedclothes, even now holding herself back. He shifted, sliding his arm under her shoulders holding her against his chest while she shuddered under him, legs tightening around his hips. And there was so much more he wanted but ah, her cries and the fluttering of her body around his, he could not slow himself any longer, drawing out only to shove himself back inside her, fast and deep, again and again, as close as he could make himself and she cried out again hoarse and sharp and-

“Ah! Solas, my heart, my heart,” and he was gone, all the tension and the waiting raging out of him in one glorious endless moment, cries matching hers.

It was the closest he had been to home since he woke in the new, stunted world. It was exactly what he had asked her for, as sweet and as languorous as he could have hoped. But even buried in her, wet with her sweat, tasting her, even this, wasn’t enough.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my extremely talented, handsome and charismatic beta readers: Rey, Nate and AAl. As ever, my work is improved immensely by their kind help. 
> 
> The beautiful image that accompanies this chapter is by Ineffablewitch (via Twitter), I can't recommend commissioning her enough.
> 
> Don’t worry, the last chapter has one more NSFW scene for you, it’s finished and in beta and will be up in the next few weeks!

She lay next to him, panting, body wet with sweat and come and yet wrung utterly dry. Exhausted, gutted. Her hands ached from where she’d clenched them to keep from dragging him into her. It had been consuming and she was as spent and empty as she could ever remember being. 

He took the ewer of water by her bed and poured a glass, sipped it and handed it to her. She took it, limbs still trembling from exertion, fingers brushing his. Before drinking, she breathed in, an abrupt sound in the suddenly quiet room. The shared glass, the sight of his stripped body, her skin smelling like him. She had spent her surprisingly long life falling into and out of bedrolls, secluded copses and unused attics with men, women, both and neither, but this... Her heart hurt at the intimacy of it. Above and below, this could be dangerous. This could be _ something _. She drank again, cleared her throat and made herself speak.

“And how do you get the corn harvested in your little village, doing _ that _ every day?” she asked, to hear him laugh, and revelled in the sound. She had switched back to the common tongue. 

“As I said, _ vhenan _,” he settled back against the pillows, “the time leading up to it could be significant, leaving plenty of days for other matters.” She moved closer to him, drawing his arm over her shoulders and twining one leg between his. She looked up at him, smiling, chin resting on his chest. 

“Hmm, some day you should let me show you some of _ our _ traditions.”

“The Dalish?” He asked, fingers reaching down to trace the curls of her _ vallaslin _ , voice holding that critical twinge it always did when she talked about her people, particularly the _ vallaslin _ . She shook her head, annoyed, dislodging his hand. He wasn’t Dalish, she didn’t care about _ that _ , but having him stare the way a human straight off the turnip cart would, particularly _ now _, rubbed her raw. 

“Mercs,” she said, sharply, “we don’t live as long as they do in your idyllic village. No time for a long courtship.”

“You had been in the companies for many years,” he ignored the snap in her voice. His displaced fingers moved to trace the scar below her collarbone where a crossbow bolt had punched first through her armor and then the rest of her.

“We’re trained to be quick and quiet early on, in the Dales,” she said. “I’m very good and _ very _ lucky.”

“Your fortune has become ours, _ da’mi _,” he said as he pulled the coverlet over them, slid his arm around her ribs and rested his cheek against her hair. Cocooned in the warmth of their bodies, and so drained, it was hard to hold on to the irritation.

“Sweet talker,” she said, letting herself ease back against him. 

“Talk to me, tell me about the new traditions you learned,” she could feel his voice in his chest, pressed against her cheek, soft and already dreamy. So much easier to talk about her years on the road than where she came from.They could leave the Dalish and the _ vallaslin _ for another day. 

“It can be a sterling life, if you’re lucky and if you’re good. The right type of company is close as close. Mostly, the companies I joined were good, too. Easy to make friends when you’re relying on the other guy to keep a knife out of your back.” Things had been simpler. She had led small groups, but never an entire force. The final choices weren’t hers. She’d focused on staying alive and spending her pay. Simpler, but not better. Here she could do more, fix more, than she ever could in the companies or the Dales. “But it can be wild and it can be chancy, and there are days when you come back from a hard fight or a good fight and you want to be reminded that blood and breath are still in you.” 

“Mm,” he hummed against her hair, “and I think this custom takes a very different form than what we did today.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Not _ so _ different, but briefer and harder. Brings you back down into yourself. Burns up the last of the nerves.”

His breath was steady and he was quiet, she thought he might have fallen asleep. She was worn enough that she might be able to, despite the early hour, the moon had barely risen.

“The day by the river?” He asked, jarring her awake from her half doze against his chest. He was thinking of less pleasant things.

“That was a mistake,” she said firmly. The hesitancy in his touch, the revolted shock in his expression, she wouldn’t cause that a second time. Shouldn’t have done it the first. “You aren’t one of my mercs and I won’t come to you like that again. There are other ways to ground yourself. I’ll climb something high or run it off.” He didn’t pull away from her, but the responding silence made her tilt her face up to see his. He met her eyes.His were still heavy lidded, but serious. 

“And Iron Bull?” He asked finally. “Did he... assist you, that day, when I could not? You and I have not discussed-” she shook her head, stopping him. If things had been otherwise, if she had been unattached, or if she and Solas had arranged things differently between them and Bull had approached her then. She remembered the heated potential between them. The strength of his hands. Well. It would have ended differently. 

“Yes, he helped me, but no, not like that. It was something different. Aie me,” she sighed, holding his eyes, sometimes hazel sometimes grey, always searching, “Solas, we hadn’t talked about it, I don’t know what you want, what this means to you or if you’re taking other lovers,” she raised her brows at him, in their long days storytelling, they hadn’t specified what they wanted, “it’s easy to call me _ ara vhen'an _,” his heart, his home, “while I’ve got my tongue stuck in your ear, but this isn’t going to be forever.” She raised her hand from where it had laid limp on the curve of his stomach, gesturing to take in the fine rooms, the grandness. It was never going to last.

“It is not, actually,” he said, fingers tracing the knotted hair back from her cheek. “Easy to say much of anything when you are doing that.” He raised gooseflesh in their wake and she pressed herself closer to him. She was exhausted and sated, but his skin still felt so good against hers. “I want you, _ vehnan _ , more than I could have imagined,” he didn’t sound entirely content with that, “but...” Ah, there, the slight blanching in his smooth face, now he’d withdraw. “...things are so uncertain. There is no one else here for me and the world needs so _ much _ of you.” Solas took her hand and looked down at it. “I see how you are stretched between all of us and I know that is how it _ must _ be.” He ran his fingertips along the webbing, the stretch of skin between her thumb and index finger. “Yet... I would rather not share this, too.” 

“Well and so, that wasn’t what I was expecting you to say.” A knot that had stayed tight along her shoulders despite the exhaustion loosened for the first time since all those months ago when he’d pulled away from her kisses. 

“Do you mind it, _ vehnan _? Would it not be one more freedom you’d given up since you left the companies?” 

She laughed and pulled their joined hands up across his chest to kiss his knuckle.

“You think I’ve never cleaved close to someone? Freedom means I can choose to take one lover or a hundred. I’ve chosen _ you, _ Solas, and I’ll continue to choose you.” She smiled up at him. “Besides you’re right about me being spread thin, if I took anyone else to bed, I’d probably fall asleep on them and how would that look? Bless’d Mighty Inquisitor, can’t satisfy her bedmates.”

“It would not do to have your position weakened at such a critical time,” he chuckled, letting go of her hand and wrapping his other arm around her. “I swear that if you fall asleep now, I will only speak of my satisfaction.” 

Even though the sky was still dark, no touch of dawn, and far earlier than she normally retired, she did sleep, lulled by the sound of his slow breathing. 

***

“You could help, you know,” Blackwall said, hatchet coming down hard on the kindling, splitting it. He was sweating despite the snow. 

“We had a bet, didn’t we?” She asked from where she sat, gesturing at the ducks at her feet. “The one who kills, doesn’t cook.” Leliana had said her spies would be bringing back a report they needed to plan their next step and there was nothing to be done until it arrived. The Inquisitor hadn’t gotten better at sitting by and waiting for news, but she couldn’t go far from Skyhold, so she and Blackwall did what they had done so often before, and slipped into the woods. 

“And what do you call that?” he asked, pointing at the deer hanging from the pole they’d haul it back to Skyhold on.

“Whoever kills _ first _.” 

“Lucky shot,” he said, cracking the hatchet down again. 

“Might be that I’m just better?”

“Or maybe some magic.”

“Right,” she snorted, “because I’ve a drop of that in me to wring out.”

“Some demon pact then. I’ve seen you do more to avoid the cookpot.” He picked up the armload of sticks and dumped them into the centre of their small camp, next to the larger logs he’d finished with earlier. 

“Tell you what, seeing as this is your third loss, I’ll make the fire and you get to dressing them.” 

“I notice you’re making this offer after the wood’s been cut.” 

“That job suits you better, anyway, it’s the beard and quilted shirt.” She said, starting to arrange the wood in a circle of stones and flicking sparks with the tinderbox until it caught. 

“And what job suits you better, _ lady _?” he asked with the ironic twist on the word. She was a General, definitely, some kind of a god-thing, probably not, but a lady? Impossible.

“Eating the ducks,” she said, reaching over and tossing them to his feet. “Once they’ve been plucked, of course.”

“Oh, getting used to the soft life, already? Give the woman a castle and she’s suddenly too good to dress her own game.” 

“Won’t get ‘round me that way,” she said. “You letting yourself get fleeced isn’t the same as me being unwilling to do the work.” 

“Mark me, lady,” he said, beginning to clean them. “If you keep this up a year from now you’ll turn your nose up at bagging your own game in the first place.” 

“Right, because once we close the Rifts and I shove this,” she held up her hand green flames sparking off it, “down Coryphus’ throat, there’ll be so much call for me to keep hobbing with the nobs.” 

“His throat if he’s lucky,” Blackwall said, cutting strips off the cleaned birds.

“Well, after Haven you might be right,” she laughed, “maybe not _ throat _.” 

“Do you really think they’ll let you go after it’s all done, go back to being a merc?”

“And just who’d keep me? Cassandra? Those cells wouldn’t have kept me more than a few days back then. And I know the dungeons and the guard a lot better in Skyhold.”

“I don’t think she’d try it.”

“You don’t?”

“Not unless you _ really _ pushed her,” he laughed.

“Maybe, better not to chance it.”

“You know what I mean,” he said, gesturing back towards Skyhold. It was obscured by the distance and the forest, but she felt the pull of it as much as he did.

“Skyhold was only ever a loan. It isn’t mine.”

“Not the building,” he said, putting a pan to heat over the fire. “The Inquisition.”

“The way things are going, you might be right. The Inquisition _ is _ mine. As much as anything has ever been.”

“It won’t just stop when all this is over,” he said it without inflection and without looking at her.

“Do you want it to?” 

“I’ve seen what you can do, lady,” and this time the word had a lot less of the ironic sting she was used to. “What you’ve turned us into.”

“Not an answer,” she said. There was still so much that needed doing. Requests for aid came every day, bandits, demons, hints of what Corypheus was planning. She was focused on the step in front of her, not what they would do when they got there. _ If _ they got there, she thought, but couldn’t say, not even out here, with just her and Blackwall and the woods. 

“We aren’t just seeing to the Rifts anymore, Inquisitor. People are coming to you to solve disputes, to protect them. We aren’t what we started as. It could be... it could do a lot of good. But I’ve seen people get less power than this and the good gets away from them. Sometimes it happens slower than others, but it always seems to start to slip. I want it to be different for you, but…” His sigh was harsh, and he slapped the meat onto the pan roughly, still not looking at her. 

“You don’t think we should keep on after.” Giving it up, the Inquisition. She used to think it was a foregone conclusion, that’s how campaigns ended. You fought the fight, you were paid, then you said your goodbyes. Sometimes it was good to move on, sometimes there were bonuses and celebrations, and sometimes there were beloved faces missing. This time when she touched on the thought of leaving, there wasn’t the usual pleasant resignation and curiosity about the next horizon, there was only regret. 

“I think nothing is worse for a good heart than power.” 

“I’d miss it,” she said and quickly held out her hands to his raised eyebrows. “Not the ordering everyone about, I’m not that far gone, yet. I’d miss the Inquisition. What we can _ do, _ and the people.” She smiled. “I’d miss you, Blackwall. Who else would feed up a General and tell her to give up her army?”

“Is that a hint?” He laughed, always a soft, surprised sound and handed her a portion of their dinner. “No one’s saying you have to go off on your own again, you don’t have to keep the Inquisition to keep us. Plenty of good you can do with a few strong arms and whatever back pay they’ll owe you for fixing the sky.”

“Probably so,” she said laughing and biting into the dark, greasy meat. Whatever they did with the Inquisition — and what that’d be she didn’t have the first settled idea — she wanted to keep this. Friends and somewhere to return to. 

***

“Solas,” Vivienne called out to him, from the top of the stairs. Her voice was soft but carrying, a courtly tone that sounded unstrained, but could still be heard across ballroom chatter. Solas resisted the urge to sigh, he avoided the Enchanter when he could. As well as having too much sympathy for the Templar cause, she was distressingly perceptive. Another skill she had no doubt honed in the courts of Val Royeaux. 

He followed her summons up the stairs to the salon she had made near the throne room. The first time he had seen it, Solas had found himself surprised. They had barely been in Skyhold a week, the rest of the fortress full of crates and chaos, but her quarters and receiving room had been arranged, tidy and elegant. It was too easy to be taken off guard by her. 

“Join me, Solas, I’m watching something you may find interesting.”

Unlike the Inquisitor, Vivienne kept her balcony doors closed and she was gazing out the fine clear glass the Inquisitor had brought from far Serault. She still wore one of the ridiculous masks they insisted on in Orlais, as if hiding a browline could so easily hide one’s intention. The affectation of children. A fire blazed, tapestries lined the walls and the room was stiflingly warm compared to the open, stone walled Rotunda. He wanted to be back there, notes under his hand, surrounded by familiar art, with the possibility of the Inquisitor happening by to ask after his research; avoiding Vivienne was one thing, but running from her was quite another. He could not let her know he was wary of her. If he gave her that small opening, how deep would those graceful hands attempt to pry? 

“Enchanter, have you and your former...,” he lingered on the word she would find painful, “Circle mages found something of interest about the Rifts?” He allowed how unlikely he thought this was to enter his voice. 

“Oh, nothing so momentous, apostate,” her tone did not suggest that his barbs had hit, but that did not surprise him. “Merely a new entertainment the soldiers seem to enjoy.” She did not turn, eyes still fixed on the courtyard where their troops trained. Even through the glass he could hear the noise of their cheers. What possible reason could she have for — then he saw the figures in the fenced in training yard. If the Iron Bull’s massive frame was impossible to mistake, the swift, lightsomeness of his _ vehnan _ was even more so. The Qunari had her wrists held high over her head. She was suspended off the ground, legs bent, clearly trying to make herself as heavy as possible. Bull did not seem to strain under the weight. She was facing him and close enough that Iron Bull must have been able to feel her breath against his bared stomach. The pose was equally violent and intimate. 

“They started this little show a few weeks ago,” Vivienne said and this time, despite the spectacle below them, he saw her flick her eyes to his face. “I believe she wanted to learn something of unarmed combat.” After the bandit tower and the river, he remembered the mud on her clothes, the pain that seemed to be a relief to her. 

“I do not know that I have seen the Inquisitor show much interest in any technique that did not involve small blades.” He kept his voice cool and politely interested, giving the Enchanter nothing to hear. The Inquisitor's archery was merely passible, despite her Dalish upbringing, she rolled her eyes at Blackwall’s shield and Cassandra’s long blade. She had said they were all too heavy and too slow. But this – she swung her weight despite Bull’s grip, arching her back and using the momentum to free herself– this looked like her style of combat. Quick, inventive, brutal.

“I understand the Iron Bull is a peerless instructor and it is always a delight to see the master of a craft at work,” Vivienne said. Solas knew she was trying to use this as a lever, to gauge his reaction, to discover something. He focused on her words, her inflection, but it was impossible to focus entirely beyond the Inquisitor, who had fallen to her knees. She turned it into a roll, trying to move out of the Iron Bull’s reach. “I know the Inquisitor has an…” did Vivienne’s voice drop slightly, becoming more suggestive? “_ Eye _ for skill and knowledge. You only have to look at our company to see that.” Vivienne’s eyes followed the Iron Bull, the Iron Bull who understood much of the Inquisitor’s life that was alien to Solas. Who was as much a spy as he, but who had told her immediately. Who calmed her. Who she valued. 

“She knows the only thing of value is people,” he said, watching the motion fail and Bull cover her, throwing his forearm across her collar, body pressing against hers in a grapple, “and how to give them what they need so we get their best.” 

“Exactly so. I suppose the years in the companies must have taught her it is better to collect good people than by riches that can’t guard your back.” The Inquisitor sagged slightly under Bull’s weight and Solas saw the movements of her trying to break the hold. He saw it so well that he did not notice Vivienne take a step closer to him. Not touching but nearer than he was expecting. He barely stopped himself from stepping back and he was certain he had betrayed himself with the slightest blanch. Damned courtier. “I _ would _ say that she is fortunate that she has people here who care about what _ she _ needs,” and again that lightest suggestion “and who will still guard her back,” Vivenne said, no longer pretending to watch the match. “Except that it isn’t truly good fortune, it is what she has earned from us.” Solas remembered marching for days through knee high swamp water and the look of unfettered relief on the Enchanter’s face when the Inquisitor had presented her with the still bleeding heart of the albino Gurgut. 

“What she needs most,” he said, tired of the so subtle implication he could be replaced and that she needed guarding from him, “is what every leader needs, good counsel untainted by the advisor’s own agenda.” She had needed guarding from him, but it was far too late for that now and he would not allow himself to be replaced. Either in her bed or by her ear. Certainly not by the Enchanter and the Bull, both too frightened of magic to see its full potential. Too frightened to see _ her _ full potential despite Bull’s charming cunning and Vivienne’s razor insight.

“She is fortunate to have you, Solas, as your motivations are clearly limited to sealing the Rifts.” She said the words with a sincerity that would have rooked many, but he heard the warning under it. She saw him, or thought she did at any rate, doubtless worried about his true motivations and what a wandering apostate might say to the Inquisitor about the emancipation of the mages. 

Another cheer came from the field, but neither mage turned to see what had caused it, standing too close, eyes locked. 

***

The Inquisitor was curled in one of the large chairs by the fire in the empty throne room – gods below a _ throne room _ – she wasn’t sure when that was going to start seeming normal. Hopefully it wouldn’t. Solas was asleep in the chambers they now shared. He had slowly spent more and more evenings there, always saying he intended to return to his own narrow bed but instead, falling asleep in her massive one. He never said he was changing his room for hers and she never asked him, but he rarely spent the night elsewhere, now. She hadn’t changed her hours to match his, still more comfortable staying up most of the night and it would be some hours until she was ready to join him. She had a smooth, varnished board across her lap, leather patchwork pinned to it, one weaving pick in her hand, the other behind her ear a small basket of colored leather strips beside her.

“Inquisitor, do you do _ anything _that doesn’t involve having something edged in your hands?” Varric asked from over her shoulder. 

“You find me something that isn’t better with a bit of sharp, and I’ll give it a try,” she said, not looking up from her work.  
“I’m certain what Varric means is that we did not intend to intrude,” Josie said, “we did not realize you had the room.”

“It’s a big room,” the Inquisitor said and waved her free hand to the empty chairs, “I think I can spare you a corner of it. I try not to spend two nights in the same place.” 

“Surely you are not concerned for assassins, here,” Josie said as the two sat. 

“I bet it’s worse than assassins,” Varric said and she gestured at him affirmatively with the needle. “People asking for favours?”

“Worse,” the Inquisitor said, plucking a long thin strand of leather from the basket and beginning to weave it into a solid sheet of knotted leather. She’d finished that on a handloom the previous night, perched in the rafters in one of the towers near Cullen’s office. “Ah,” Josie’s expression brightened, “then it is people asking to ‘consult’ with you, not taking your advice and sneaking in comments about how you’re doing everything wrong?”

“Mmhm, when I’m lucky they’ll throw in a few vague threats, to keep things spicy.”

“And you think _ here _ in the centre of your stronghold is the best place to hide?” Varric crossed his arms over his chest and quirked her a crooked smile.

“Last place anyone would think to look.” That wasn’t entirely true, but occasionally spending her evenings here meant anyone hoping to waylay her would wait here, rather than searching the more remote areas of the keep. 

“May I see?” Josie asked, looking at the Inquisitor’s busy hands, tugging purple leather over black in the angular design that evoked the night sky in Dalish art. 

“Sure,” she said, handing over the board.

“Oh,” Josie said, fingers hovering over the complicated series of knots and braiding, “Inquisitor, it’s lovely. When you asked me to requisition the dyed leather, I had no idea you were using it for this.” 

“I never was any good at tanning, even if I had the time,” she fidgeted her fingers at Josie. “I do it for the exercise. Have to keep them dexterous, when you’re in my line.”

“Don’t listen to her, Ruffles, it’s good work ” Varric said, looking over Josie’s shoulder at the leatherwork. “Dalish handicraft is second only to Dwarven,” she snorted at the backhanded compliment, “and I’ve seen the Bosses’ knot bracers turn some surprisingly large swords,” he turned his gold eyes up to her, “I always wondered how that worked.”

“Mm, you’d think an expert on Dwarven craftsmen would know a thing or two about keeping trade secrets,” she said, taking her project back from Josie. 

“Alright, alright,” he said, holding out his hands, “but after we’ve closed the breach, if you want to sell anything, I have contacts in Kirkwall that would eat it up.”

“Set up a little operation and sell my work?” her lips twitched up and she barked a surprised laugh, echoing up into the high ceilings. “Ah, Varric, can you imagine? Coming half way round the wide, wide world to do what my mother apprenticed me to do in the first place?” She shook her head. “I appreciate it, but no. I expect when this is all said and done, I’ll go back to where I was before.”

“To the Dales?” Josie asked and the Inquisitor’s fingers slowed, she knew the other woman’s question was well intentioned. Well-intentioned didn’t make her any more eager to talk about it. 

“No,” she said, hoping the curt answer would end it

“I’m sorry Inquis—”

“Right,” she said harshly, cutting off any further discussion. 

“You know Ruffles has never meant to strike a nerve in her life, boss,” Varric said. “You never talk about home. You can, you know?”

“Can I?” The shortness in her voice turned into a snap and her shoulders tensed. “Looking for more stories to add to your books? _ Dirthera ma harel _,” she tried to close her lips around the words but it was too late. 

“Now, I don’t know much elvish, but I have been called a liar in just about every language you can imagine, so I recognize the gist.” 

She looked up from her work, jaw tight, angry and she saw Josie, shocked at her outburst, and Varric sitting back and looking deliberately unfazed. Her friends. Embarrassment overtook the anger. Her voice was softer when she answered him. 

“It’s probably closer to...a keeper of stories who deliberately makes changes, which…” she waggled her hand.

“Doesn’t sound that bad in common but the Dalish don’t think much of it,” Varric finished.

“Yeah, not much at all. Varric, Josie, I’m sorry, you’re right,” she rolled her tight shoulders. “Talking about home, it’s not easy, but that’s no reason to act like my prick’s in a knot.”

“Inquisitor,” Josie said, pulling her chair closer and taking one of her restless hands, “we’ve spoken at length about Antiva and how I miss our estate there, do you not feel you could speak to me about this?”

“And don’t worry about it ending up in a book, I only ever put in what I knew Hawke would like,” he chuckled and took her other hand, squeezing it once before letting it go. “Never met another person who’s ego was as big as her sense of humour.”

“Do you miss home?” Josie asked, offering her a place to start. 

“Yes,” she said, followed immediately by, “no,” and an impatient noise. “I left a long while ago. _ Home _ has been a war camp or a barracks for longer than I was ever in the Dales.” And now Skyhold and these people. Home. “I miss... I miss the sound of the aravels,” the crack of the sails in the wind made by the Keeper, the slow creak of ancient polished wood, “and seeing faces like mine,” and not meeting the shocked gapes of people who’d never seen the _ vallaslin _ before. “I wasn’t ever much good with the halla, but I miss them too, I guess. Idiot animals.”

“But?” Varric asked, when she let the silence stretch too long. 

“But I left a long time ago, didn’t want to make trade goods and follow the same paths we’d been traveling for age after age,” she wound her hand in a circle, tracing the endless, repeated time in front of her. “It’s what we did, what had been done before, because it’d been done before.” The longer she was away from them the less meaning those traditions had. “It’s a dangerous world, but I wanted to see some of it. The Keeper knew it and she knew I’d either go with her help or without it.”

“She sounds like a wise woman,” Josie said.

“Always good to me. Wasn’t ever much with a longbow, but knives and tracking, I can do. Set me up with a merc company with a good reputation, one we’d worked with before, who didn’t mind having an elf around.”

“And safer for you to be surrounded by a bunch of tough customers than wandering around alone,” Varric said. “I had a Dalish friend whose Keeper did the same for her, but she hooked my friend up with Hawke, so I don’t know about a _ good _ reputation.” 

“Fell into the habit of slitting throats for money and out of the habit of speaking elvish, when nobody else did.”

“I know Sera doesn’t speak it and Solas isn’t Dalish, but there are plenty of elves in Skyhold who are,” Josie said, trying to comfort her. It didn’t. “Or perhaps we could arrange a delegation?”

“It isn’t the lack of company, is it boss?”

“No,” she said, wanting to leave it there, surely this was enough sharing from that hard pit in her stomach. 

“Inquisitor, it’s alright,” Josie said, and she didn’t know if she meant it was alright to say or not to say. She remembered months ago, finding Josie crying, missing her home, her family, holding her while she apologized after every sob, called herself silly. How could she be less brave with her feelings? 

“You know that only the Keepers know how to read our language? It’s not traditional to teach the rest of us,” and Solas’ face when she admitted she couldn’t read the scroll he’d held out to her, the revulsion in it, had made her feel the shabbiness of those traditions even more keenly. Ashamed of her ignorance and ashamed of her people and ashamed at her feelings of shame, she could have devoured herself. Her throat was tight, eyes prickling, she reached up to rub them.

“I imagine Chuckles had a few things to say about that,” Varric said, gaze steady on hers. 

“He...wasn’t impressed,” gods, it had hurt. She couldn’t have told Solas more after that, but to Varric, to Josie... “We’re supposed to be preserving the old ways and there might have been some reason for keeping it secret, once, but now? Now we do it because the _ habit _ is sacred.” 

Josie squeezed her hand, wordlessly encouraging, the Inquisitor held on tightly. 

“I went back,” she said, voice uncertain, “a few years after I left and it... it just didn’t fit. It felt small.” She could barely get the words out around the guilt she felt admitting it. “Nothing changes. Same people, same words, same roads. Well,” she said, “one thing changed. There’s no place for me there, now... and when I speak the words of _ vhenas _, my home, it reminds me of how meagar it seems. We’re a tomb for a dead culture, preserving the scraps of what was lost to us instead of making something new, and I can’t do it,” she swallowed and felt the tears come hot and stinging, she dashed them away roughly. 

Varric did what he must have done for so many of the heroes from his stories: listened and handed her a handkerchief. How many famous tears had soaked this? 

“Inquisitor, you know I was raised up here, under the unholy sky,” Varric snorted, “and I spent my whole life hearing about how Orzammar was this awe inspiring stronghold of absolute dwarfdom. When I finally got down there?” he shook his head. “I know something about an entire people becoming a crypt. Empty thaigs, castes, people fighting feuds that their grandparents couldn’t remember the reasons for. I never saw the point.”

“I can’t be that, Varric and I can’t see the value in it. Gods high and low, saying it makes me feel like a traitor to all the love and care they put into me. All the things I _ did _ take away.” She could remember the songs, so beautiful, harmonies spiraling back from the long distant past, praising empathy and home; she could remember the best handhold to take on a tree branch whipping in a gale; she could remember training her body to swift, deadly silence. Her people. Despite their deficiencies they had so much of worth and had given her so much and yet...

“Aie me, even if things were otherwise, I’d still be how I am - the problem is _ here _ ,” she fisted her hand and touched her breast. “It gnaws that I’m not what I should be for my people. And if I do go back some day, after all of _ this _ ,” she gestured widely, taking in the hall and the stained glass windows and the _ throne _. “How small will they look?”

She momentarily looked down at the fingers entwined in one hand, the red and gold handkerchief in the other, taking strength from the sight and forcing her eyes back up to meet theirs. 

“It isn’t wrong to be as you are, Inquisitor,” Josie said, unerringly kind Josie, who spent her long, long days seeing to the comfort and harmony of the keep, but who could see into your intentions with a clarity that could be more frightening than an Antivan Crow. “My home is a city of traders and we know the value of the right setting for something precious. When a beautiful gem is set in a ring that doesn’t suit it, it is not the gem nor the setting that is at fault, they merely do not belong together.” The Inquisitor blew her nose and sniffed, wanting badly to believe it, but gods, what did any of this say about her? About the Dalish? 

“Are you calling the Inquisitor a beautiful gem, Ruffles?” Varric asked.

“What? I… no… that is, yes. _ Varric _.” 

Josie’s blush was the prettiest thing she had seen all day and the Inquisitor smiled, just as she knew Varric meant her to. 

“She’s right, you know,” Varric said, “look at the lot of us here, former Templar, former Circle Mage, former Seeker, former Bards, former _ Ben-Hassrath _, and a brilliant writer. The Inquisition seems like a good fit for a lot of oddly-shaped people. The place you fit doesn’t have to be the place you’re from, boss. And besides the whole saving the world thing, you’re building a home for a lot of people.”

Home. This could be one, if she wanted it, if she stayed, if she helped it last.

“Thank you,” she said squeezing Josie’s hand tightly, still watching both of them through still watery eyes and Josie pulled her forward, wrapping her in a silken hug. It wasn’t long after that she felt Varric’s strong arms around them both. “Thank you.” 

***

She was perched on the parapet, legs stretched out on the ledge below the crenulation, one arm propped against it, pipe in her other hand. She was watching the drifts of snow blow around Skyhold. It was high enough in the mountains that it would always be winter here and she liked the cold. It was late, deep into the night, and everyone but the watch Cullen had posted were in their rooms. The sentries were used to her. They should be, she spent enough nights up here. They’d long since given up on being startled or overawed by her. The Herald of Andraste and Highest Grace Inquisitor liked to have a quiet smoke when she couldn’t find an excuse to be out and doing. She also liked having a moment when no one tried to find her. Admittedly, it was because they were all asleep. 

“Are you _ smoking _ , _ vhenan _ ?” Solas’ low, soft voice had a way of creeping down her spine, she suppressed a pleasant shiver of response. She liked having a moment when _ almost _ anyone didn’t try to find her. 

“Since my captains always told me a smoking scout is a dead scout, and my mother always told me it’s bad for my lungs...no?” she smiled and brought the pipe back up to her mouth. The tobacco was Antivan, smooth, golden, and fine, like Josie who had gifted it to her when she’d heard her complaining about the Fereldan muck in her pouch. Josie said they claimed to dry it on sheets of silk between the rows of clove trees, the pollen adding sweet and spice. The Inquisitor had long since given up trying to recreate the mossy tasting tobacco she’d surreptitiously smoked with the other young elves in the Dales. She supposed she could have it now, a gift to the Inquisitor, but she wasn’t confident she remembered the taste or if the years had warped her recollection and the real thing would be nothing like her memory. Like so many things from the Dales, better to keep the memory than try to relive it. 

“Then surely, you are not,” he said, leaning against the wall with his back to the mountains, facing her. He surprised her by holding out his hand and she placed the long stem of the pipe into it. “And neither am I.”

“Tut tut, giving in to the human disease,” she laughed, watching the smoke ring around his face. He looked like a desire demon materializing from the Fade.

“I think the human disease might be an irrational fondness for dogs, but our people have a long history of this particular vice.” 

“Convince an aravel full of scandalized elders,” she said, leaning down from her roost and curling her fingers along the neckline of his shirt, keeping her movement achingly slow, not startling him and drawing him forward and up to her lips. Soft, yielding, and tasting of smoke. She let herself trace the edges of his tongue once with hers before withdrawing. She had never revelled in restraint, but there was something alluring in holding herself back, in waiting while the desire grew fuller and fuller between them. 

She plucked the pipe from his unresisting fingers, leaned back against the tower wall and watched him, loving the sight. She had learned the subtle telltales of desire in his expressions, the slight lidding to his eyes, the deliberately slow breaths.

“I woke and you had not joined me,” he said, “are you having trouble sleeping?”

“Not as long as the sun is safely up. Council ran late, I wasn’t going to be able to drift off yet, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Pacing is not conducive to sound sleep,” he gestured at her pipe. “Neither are stimulants. If you keep this up, you’ll end up having your court entirely held at night.”

“Hmm, there _ is _ a thought. I’ll become Queen of the Night and make all the courtiers switch their hours to curry my favour. We could change the Inquisition uniforms to black silk with red lining. Or we could just keep doing what we’re doing and I’ll sleep before dawn and be up before noon.” 

“I would not wish to exile you from your own rooms.”

“You like my bed better than that cot in a closet you were stuck in. And I think of it less as exiling, and more as keeping it warm for me.” The sight of him, unguarded and waiting for her when she slipped into her, no, _ their _ chambers, was worth losing a private place to think and pace during the quiet hours. She was beginning to think she’d never tire of it, this place, these people, him. 

She took one last puff of smoke and tapped the pipe against the stone, putting it out. She held out her hand and let him help her down. He left his hand cradled around her bicep, long fingers caressing lightly. 

“Will you come early to bed tonight, oh Dauphine of the Evening?”

“Hmm,” she stepped closer, letting her breasts brush lightly against his chest, “and if I do, will you quench my thirst for,” she paused letting him feel the moment, the strain of it, “your stories?”

His laugh was breathless as he dipped his head downward, lips tracing along her hair until he found the tip of her ear.

“Of course,” he whispered. This time she couldn’t hold back the shudder of her response.

Later, she lay with her head in his lap, listening as he twined fingers through her hair, continuing the endless task of untangling it. 

“Tell me about your travels in the Fade,” she said, looking up at him. Before she had loved him, she had loved his stories.

“Always.” He was staring through the curtains that billowed around the balcony doors, open to let in the night air. The room smelled like snow from the mountains and ash from the fire. “I journeyed deep into a wood where small, gem coloured birds flitted through the dense canopy.” His voice slowed and lowered into the sing-song cadence he used when he remembered the Fade. “Like many brightly coloured things, they carried poison on their beaks, strong enough to kill a larger beast. For many years the forest belonged to them, until came the spread of man, who burned it down to safeguard their village. This happened many years in the distant past, but the hill where they lived is still barren. It is ever the way of men, they cannot abide by something beautiful and dangerous.”

“Pretty story,” she said, making a face, “I liked the one about the Matchmaker better.”

“They were,” he said, still far away, “very pretty. Glittering colours sparking between the trees. Something magical even-” he shook his head, “- even with such a sad ending.” 

“Hmm, not so sad for the village, I don’t know as I’d want to worry about poison birds slipping in the window at night. You only got to see them safely because you were Fadewalking.” 

“I would not choose to settle my village next to a volcano or cave full of vipers,” he shrugged. “And a thing does not become less beautiful because humans do not enjoy it.” 

“Or less dangerous because _ you _ do,” she said. 

“Peril has never damped my interests, in the Fade or out of it,” he stroked his thumb along her jawline and even half concealed from his position above her, she saw his expression cloud. “My _ da’mi _.” She struggled with what to say to that, he’d called her his knife, his edge, as often as he’d called her his heart. She hadn’t thought what that might mean to him beyond the obvious. 

She held her hand over his and she struggled with how to ask what danger he expected from her. Her thoughts were interrupted by a scatter of birdsong, the uncertain moment broken. Dawn hadn’t crested yet, but the birds had started the hesitant prelude to the morning cacophony, judging anyone still awake. They both looked towards the balcony.

“I meant to bring you to bed early and you have kept me tale spinning all night,” he gently pushed her up, face studiously calm again.

“Solas,” she slipped off of his lap onto the bed and made an attempt against that closed, serene expression. “If there is something worrying you…”

“Only the thought of doors rattling before long. If we sleep now, you might get a few hours before there is something that _ must _ have your attention.” She sighed as he put out the light. There would always be tomorrow night to try again. 

  
  


***

“I don’t care _ how _ good you are, ladyship, I _ know _ you’re up there,” Sera said and her voice wasn’t playful. “Creepy said it saw you come in here. Or, I think that’s what it said.” She reached up, trying to reach the beam that the Inquisitor was tucked up on, stretched her fingers, couldn’t reach, jumped, caught, walked up along the wall and pulled herself the rest of the way up with a grunt. The Inquisitor let her legs fall, no sense in hiding, now. 

“Don’t call Cole ‘it’, Sera,” she said, “he’s a spirit and a person.”

“And don’t think you can distract me with arguing about Creepy,” Sera said walking along the rafter towards her, her well-balanced step hitting as hard as if she was on the ground, “or by hiding in weird old rooms and not answering me when I come looking. I need to _ talk _ to someone and you’re it, yeh?” 

“Blackwall.”

“Of _ course _ , Beardy,” she kept walking until she was standing a few inches from her, “he’s _ your _ friend, too, and you’re _ not _ going to let some nobs cut off his head because he killed some other nobs a hundred years ago!” Sera was shouting, now, voice harsh and choked on snot. “Stupid,” she said rubbing her arms over eyes. “Friends are stupid, and feelings are stupid, and _ you’re _ stupid for believing him. Rainier is a _ stupid _ name. But it doesn’t matter cuz you’re _ not _ letting him get chopped.” 

“I know,” she said, drawing up one knee and resting her chin on it, eyes meeting Sera’s and so, so tired. 

“You know _ what _?” Sera snarled.

“All of it, the friends bit, and the stupid bit, and you’re right, I won’t.”

“Well,” Sera said, she sat, heavily, strings cut. “Good.” She stretched one leg out and kicked the Inquisitor’s shin, but only lightly. If she’d still been angry, there would have been bruises. “So if you already decided, why are you hiding out up here?”

“Because... I know it’s what I’m going to do, but you know it’s not right, Sera. Blackwall _ is _ our friend, but people got killed because of him and you know it’s not _ just _ nobs. His crew, he left them to face that whole shitstorm he called up and he _ lied _ to us,” she kept her eyes on Sera’s “over and over and over.” He’d told her, voice as dour and matter of fact as she’d ever heard it. All the odd little strangenesses and inconsistencies were suddenly so obvious. “I didn’t see it and I’m trying to think of just one good reason for letting him go besides friendship. I can’t think of one and I’m going to do it anyways. Because he’s my friend and so I’m _ going _ to.”

“So? What’s the point of all this,” Sera gestured around her, “well not _ this _ like, the store room, but the tapestries and the meetings and the papers if you can’t help Beardy?”

“If I start helping friends who fuck up this bad, Sera, what’s going to stop me from doing whatever other damned things I want? Start making people as I don’t like taste dirt. Blackwall..._ Rainier _, would hate that more than I do.” Rainier had been so worried about how it would be. How she’d slide if she was the strong and true Inquisitor for too long. How much of that was observation of the world and how much had been the memory of his own laughing descent. 

“Don’t be more stupid, lady-winks, who do you _ think’d _ stop yeh?” Sera said, rubbing her sleeve under her nose. “What’s the point of knowing a puckering Jenny, otherwise?”

“Promise?” she asked, with a weak smile. 

“Knife right through any boot heel that tries to grind down, lady, especially yours.”

“He’s going to hate this. He’s the only one in this whole castle who can hunt worth half a damn and we talk.”

“I _ know. _ Grim grunting _ Rainier _ ,” Sera said the name like it had gone off, “always gets _ right _ chatty around you.”

“Getting special treatment from the Inquisition after his big gesture,” the edges of the Inquisitor’s lips quirked up. “I might have to pull him off the scaffold.”

“Beardy’s pretty big, maybe take Cully-Wully with you to help yank.”

“If he’d help... A lot of our people, solid people, aren’t going to like this.”

“Solas,” Sera said, face screwing up with disapproval. 

“No. I think he might actually be relieved we’re down one Grey Warden. Cassandra.”

“Pft, she’s got legs that go all the way up, but we don’t need to worry so much about what the church guard thinks, yeh? Cass is always mad about _ something _. She likes it. Now,” Sera said poking her with her toe again, “if Beardy’s safe and you’re all fixed, you stop pouting and I’ll stop sniveling and you can show me the hand thing?”

“...the which? Because Solas and I agreed no-”

“Ew, no. Not that. Though,” she waggled her hand, “if you ever get your head straight about old tightass and want to reconsider, but nah, I mean the thing where you fall down from a tree into a handspring. I could use that to scare _ anyone _. Nobody’d be immune to drop-Sera.” 

The Inquisitor laughed, not feeling “fixed”, exactly, but lighter than she had felt in days. She demonstrated the handspring.. Sera was right, no one ever was. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nate and Rey, my incomparable beta readers: thank you, thank you, thank you. This fic was made immeasurably better because of your work. 
> 
> The beautiful image that accompanies this chapter is by Lethendralis (via Tumblr: lethendralis-paints.tumblr.com and via Twitter: Lethendralis), commission them! 
> 
> And we've now reached the end of this fic, but not the end of my plans for this series. I'm currently working on the follow up: But One Day, I Know, It Will Be Otherwise. It will be all smut and all angst. Thanks to everyone for the kind comments, they definitely added some pep into my typing!

Solas watched as the Inquisitor threaded the needle of court politics at the Winter Palace. She tied them tight and knotted them to her, dazzling practiced courtiers one moment and slipping unseen into private chambers the next. With flattery and blackmail and smiles she wove them all into her design. The courtiers were not the only ones beguiled by her. She had let him hold all of that contained grace in his arms on the balcony, outside the heat and confusion of the ballroom, and in that hive of motivation and tangled schemes, he had no plans or fears and thought only of her. He should have hardened his heart. He loved her. The love was not tender, nor honest, nor kind, but he _ loved _ her. 

Then came the rumors of the Grey Wardens acting strangely, their tainted blood responding to Corypheus. 

“Erimond is at Adamant and we’re going to pry him out and stop whatever gods damned thing the Wardens are doing,” the Inquisitor said. Uncharacteristically, she had stayed in her quarters to pace rather than spending the evening ghosting through Skyhold while he slept. Solas watched her, from his place perched on the high mattress. Cutting Corypheus off from the Wardens would chip away at his power, leaving him more vulnerable to the Inquisition's forces and yet…

“Adamant has withstood siege and war since long before the Wardens claimed it,” Solas said. “Only time and disinterest have ever emptied it.”

“That’s going to have to change,” she said as she walked her hundredth circle around the room. 

“And have the stones themselves started obeying your commands, Inquisitor?”

“Solas,” she stopped her circuit, wrapped one hand around the bedpost and stared her endless gaze at him. “We don’t have a choice, we can’t leave them at our back and whatever Corypheus is doing will be some Creator damned mess.”

It was true. The Wardens needed to be stopped and with the last of his allies stripped from him, they could turn to finally ending Corypheus and he could recover the orb and then...then. He watched her, frowning, brow creased, moon and fire battling to highlight her features with red and white light...then he would leave her and end it. 

End _ everything_.

“_Vehnan_, you cannot be rash. Leliana has scouts looking for vulnerabilities, Josephine is gaining support and supplies from the lords, Cullen is drilling your soldiers and gathering siege engines. Do not rush to this confrontation unprepared.”

“He’s getting his claws deeper into them all the time,” she sighed, sagging against the post. “We have to stop it.”

“We will, _ da’mi_, but only if we are cautious,” he held a hand out to her and felt a pleased rill of response when she took it, pulling herself onto the bed and crawling towards him, smooth and inescapable. 

“Now you sound like the Commander,” she said, snorting and pulling his arm around her and tucking her body against his. “Guess if you two are agreeing on _ something _ it can’t hurt to listen.” 

On his advice, she waited and he could stay with her a little longer. He should have hardened his heart. He loved her, and he should have been saved by prudence or will, but he _ loved _ her. 

***

“While I appreciate not storming the un-stormable fortress,” Dorian said, shading his eyes against the unending, baking brightness. “Is banging our head against these shards really the best use of the very important, very _ finite _ amount of time before we _ do _ have to do that?”

“Hardings found a new tunnel that might lead to the…” the Inquisitor stalled, they knew so little about the shards and what they were for, she didn’t have a word for what they were looking for.

“Crypt? Ritual chamber? Heap of other shards gathered for no discernible reason?” Dorian supplied. “Which would you prefer?” 

“I think I’d prefer not marching through the desert in armor,” Krem said, leaning a heavy arm on Dorian’s shoulder, sweat running from his scalp down his neck. Both she and Krem had compromised on the weight of their armor for the trip, but neither were comfortable. “Which means reaching the oasis, which means marching instead of navel gazing.” He looked over Dorian’s leather harness and light cotton kilt. 

“But it’s such a fine example of a navel,” Dorian said, gesturing at his midriff and starting to walk again. “Besides,” he stretched out his arms, embracing the heat. “This is the first time since I left Tevinter that I’ve felt warm. I thought you were looking forward to cracking the ice off your boots too, Krem.” 

“I’ll have plenty of time to enjoy it when I can strip some of this off,” he said, fist clanging against his chest plate. The Inquisitor noticed a slight speculative raise to Dorian’s brow before he turned and looked back over his shoulder at Solas. 

“How about you, Solas?” 

“I am looking forward to learning more about the purpose of the shards, and Scout Harding’s reports seemed promising. Dorian, I expect your knowledge of Tevinter magecraft will help us discover what the Venatori have already tried, so we can avoid their early mistakes.”

It was Solas who had brought the scout’s report to her attention while she was worrying over possible attack plans for Adamant. It was too soon to attack the fortress and she’d been grateful when Solas had offered her something else to do. There was _ finally _ a chance of discovering more about the purpose of the shards. Maybe they could get the drop on the Venatori. At worst it was an excuse to be out and doing again, rather than staring at maps and hoping to make taking Adamant seem possible.

“He means the heat, Solas,” she said, mopping her brow with a handkerchief. 

“I have seen enough of the world to know how to remain comfortable in various types of terrain. This is no different.” He had a hood pulled up over his head and his clothes, though less revealing than Dorian’s, beat the ever loving hell out of armor. 

“Damn sight easier to do that if you can cast a shield, instead of carrying one,” Krem said. They had had enough skirmishes on the way here that doing with any less protection seemed unwise. 

“I’m starting to think another arrow through me’d be easier to hack,” the Inquisitor said, pointlessly pulling at the neck of the armor, hoping for some relief, but only feeling the undershirt peel wetly away from her skin. 

They were long hours away from the oasis where the Inquisition force had camped once they had cleared the Venatori. The end of the journey was hot, stumbling and sere. 

“Well thank the gods below and beneath,” she said, when they finally saw the Inquisition banner hanging limply against the windless sky. It marked the trail to the camp where Harding’s scouts kept watch. 

“That flag has never looked more inspiring,” Krem said, giving it a weak flap and grinning at them. “Listen! It’s saying: ‘time to strip out of your armor, lads,’” he said rustling the fabric in time with his words. 

“I expect a little more enthusiasm when someone says that to me,” Dorian said, taking Krem’s elbow as he walked past. “I find it surprising you don’t expect the same, Cremisius. Too much time among exhausted soldiery?”

“I _ expect _,” Krem said arching his eyebrows and tilting his head, mimicking Dorian’s pose. “That you and the others find the strenuous act of laying on couches reading increases stamina a treat?”

“Only when we have someone nearby to peel grapes. One must save one’s energy for more important things.”

“What about you, Inquisitor,” Krem asked, stifling a laugh. “Do you prefer your troops hoarding their energy or keeping sharp for the fight?” 

“We’ve both been in the ranks a long time, Krem,” the Inquisitor said. “You should know that it’s better to have a good mix of bruisers and cautious fighters when you can get it.”

“Far too conciliatory an answer,” Dorian said. “You don’t travel enough with our Inquisitor, Lieutenant,” Dorian’s lips twitched as he glanced briefly at Solas. “Or you’d know she always puts herself entirely into a fight and insists everyone else reserve their strength and there is nothing she loves half so well as us indolent mages, eh Solas?” 

She saw Solas’ half smile through the shrouding of the hood. 

“That might be the custom in Tevinter,” he said, “but my travels have required me to be more rigorous than Tower Mages and Magisters.” 

The Inquisitor’s bark of laughter was followed immediately by Krem’s as they finished picking their way down the last downslope into the camp. 

“Anything to report?” the Inquisitor asked, shrugging her pack off onto one of the benches near the firepit. 

“All quiet here, Inquisitor,” said the scout who had greeted them. 

“I’m for the pool Harding told us about, then,” Krem said, impatiently pulling at the straps of his armor. 

“Sit,” Dorian said, pushing the other man’s hand away and slipping his between the plate, deftly opening the buckles. “At the risk of being mistaken for a squire, it will be faster if I do it.”

The Inquisitor had her own thin leather armor halfway shimmied over her head when she heard Krem’s clatter to the ground. 

“How much sand was _ under _ there?” Dorian asked.

Krem groaned and rubbed his hand against his neck. 

“If I hadn’t seen for myself that the desert wasn’t empty, I’d have guessed all of it. I am going to scrape my back raw against a rock until the itching stops.”

“As I’m _ already _ in danger of becoming your squire, there are easier ways to have your back scratched,” Dorian said, taking soap and a rough cloth from his pack. 

“Join us, Inquisitor?” Krem said, looking at Dorian’s hands and then away. 

“We’ll be down presently,” Solas answered, smoothly. “There are preparations for the placement of the shards I would like to discuss with the Inquisitor before tomorrow.”

“Suit yourselves,” Krem said, heaving his armor over his shoulder making his way to the tents, Dorian following him. 

“Kindly done,” she said, leaning against him, hearing Dorian’s laugh and watching them climb the rope ladder down the cliff face. “Didn’t think you and Dorian got on.”

“He is a brilliant man who was born into the wrong place and is making the best of it,” Solas shrugged, “and everyone deserves a bit of happiness.”

She heard the bitter nostalgia in his voice and she wondered, again, about Solas’ little village, the one he’d only talk about in the broadest generalities. What had finally forced him to leave? He looked into her eyes for a long moment and then to her shoulder and frowned. 

“Inquisitor, it has opened again,” he reached forward and pulled aside the cotton shirt, baring her shoulder and the slice she had taken on their way through the desert. Solas had healed it, but apparently it hadn’t taken. 

She hissed, noticing a pain that hadn’t been there a moment ago. 

“You should have mentioned it, we could have stopped and seen to it.”

“Thought it was more sand chafing,” she said, turning her chin aside to give him room to work. He gently parted the wound and frowned.

“It appears that it is that as well, it will need to be cleaned before I can do more.” He sat her on one of the camp chairs and rinsed the wound with water, pain going from a sting to a throb and then back to a sting when he switched to the watered wine they used to bathe injuries. “This should have already mended,” he said, putting away the canteens. 

“Healing magic can only do so much,” she said, shrugging her good shoulder, “you know that better than me. Nothing but rest and time _ really _ heals. Don’t have much of either.” 

“It should have been nothing to seal it,” he said, laying his hand next to the slice, still slowly weeping blood, his face sour. “Now, it will likely scar.”

“Ah well, what’s one more star in the sky, right?”

“I expect more of myself than these,” he jerked his head to the healer’s tent, “fumblers.” 

“Oh, I don’t know, my blood is more in than out,” she’d had them hire on what they could from the companies. Healers who knew how to deal with the constant influx of battered bodies and how to hamstring the foolishly brave ones trying to get back on their feet too fast, “and they’ve kept my recovery time quick as a whip crack.” They knew that the General _ needed _ to be back on her feet with the minimum of fussing. His hand traveled lower down her back gently resting on the old lump of scar tissue. Too often his eyes and hands and frown ended there. 

“The care I see here lacks everything,” he said, lips twisting further, but she didn’t respond with anything but a relieved sigh, because she felt his magic, so unlike any other healing she’d known. Typically, there was a long jolt of pain, replaced by the gnaw of a half healed injury and an admonishment to go easy on it till it finished healing on its own. Not with Solas. His hands were a balm, the slick, cool feel of his magic on her skin, under her skin, sapping away the pain. Gentle as a breath and strangely leaving the taste of mint in the back of her throat. 

“Mmm,” she hummed, enjoying the soothing sensation enough that she didn’t want to argue with her stubborn lover about triage. She’d spend the last few weeks with little enough comfort.

“There,” he said, magic withdrawing, hand still resting on her shoulder. When she looked down, not only was it healed but there was no seam of the scar, the skin was untouched. He licked the sweat off his upper lip and sat down next to her heavily, shadows under his eyes. “_ That _ is what healing should look like.” He smiled a lazy, imperious smile and kissed the healed skin. He let his cheek rest against her shoulder, tired eyes closing. Looking at his satisfied, exhausted expression, she didn’t particularly _ want _ to try and change his mind. You didn’t always have to push the boulder up a hill, did you? He only healed by magic, somehow never learning to pick up a needle or scalpel. “How much you have endured under hands that treat healing like butchery.” She didn’t _ want _ to, but-

“Solas,” she said, reaching over and running her thumb under his lip, before pinching his chin and forcing him to look at her. He blinked at her, surprise followed by that quickly suppressed anger, the tail of a fish flicking the water, there and gone and you’d never know its size. “You throw it all into the healing, you do it quick and you do it perfect. But you founder yourself.” 

“You deserve-”

She interrupted him with a sharp, wordless grunt. 

“I like being knit up fast, always, but what if you knew there were a hundred after me and that this little nick might be followed by someone with their guts split?” 

He started to speak and stopped, eyes flicking away. She released him.

“Think on it,” she said, standing and nodding at the healers. “They do.” 

“I will, Inquisitor,” he said as he stood, not offering her any more than dropping the argument. His tone was more thoughtful and less clipped than she expected, despite the ‘Inquisitor’. He handed her shucked armor to her, and picked up his own pack. 

“Right then,” she said, “let’s get this put away and we can take our turn when they’ve finished up.” 

***

Harding had said the position of their outpost was defensible, it was high enough to have a vantage point over the maze of crevices and spired rocks. She’d said it had a nearby water source and was close enough to the shard caves that they could guard them. 

She hadn’t mentioned that it was beautiful. 

After the long days in the featureless desert, the pool was indescribably welcome. The water was teal enough to be nearly blinding and the falls rushing from higher up the mountains meant, despite the heat, it was nearly cold. Palms idled on the shore and the sand was white and soft, nothing like the grit they’d been fighting to get here. She shed her clothes as quickly and as happily as she had her armor and was naked and neck deep in a flash. 

“Aie,” she sighed, digging her toes into the cool, saturated sand and stretching her arms out. It wasn’t the bracing embrace of the lakes near Skyhold, but gods awake, she hadn’t felt so much herself in days. She bent her knees and slowly lowered herself deeper into the water, feeling it soak into the curls of her hair. She scrubbed her fingers along her scalp, over her brows and eyelashes, dislodging days worth of sand and sweat and discomfort. She pushed against the bottom and surfaced, blinking the water out of her eyes and looking for Solas. He had gotten as far as pulling off his shirt and was shaking it out, dust glittering against the hard light of the sun. He folded it and placed it neatly on a rock. 

“You’re going to wash it all before we go, anyways,” she said, kicking her feet and moving back into a float, hands trailing in the water beside her. “You’re holding off temptation for no reason.” 

“I will, provided I have time and we are not chased out by monsters or mages or who knows what. In the fairly likely event that that happens, I would rather not add sand abrasions to my concerns.” He reached down and picked up her breaches, which were already marked with water from where she splashed into the pool. He laid them and the rest of her things out on another of the large flat rocks and she loved the way the curve of his belly creased when he bent over and the luminescence of his skin in the unforgiving light. 

“I don’t know how you aren’t sizzled to a crisp after days of this.” 

“This is hardly my first desert,” he said, “a hood and some salve go a long way.” Satisfied with the state of her clothes, he unlaced his leggings and set them next to his tunic, the movement was unhurried and deliberate, sap inching down a cedar. She watched the slow, artless strip of clothes and forgot to be annoyed with him, for his fussiness, for his dismissal of other healers. The irritation sloughed off of her like the sand and was replaced by that so frequent spike of desire. Rather than joining her, he sat back against the rock, leaning against his elbows and sunning himself as if they hadn’t spent the last week sweating through the sunlight. 

“So does taking a damned minute to cool off,” she cleared her throat and tried to pick up the conversation. “But as long as you’re up there, pass me my things?”

He idly reached into her bag, not moving further than he had to and unerringly tossed her comb and lavender soap. They made large batches of it in Skyhold out of the hardy flower. 

“As much as I enjoy your winter fastness, _ vehnan _, I agree with your Tevinter contingent. It can be a pleasure to travel to warmer climes, occasionally.” He uncoiled, lulled by the heat, the thrum of the water against the rocks and the knowledge that Inquisition soldiers patrolled the area. Solas relaxed and in profile was worth appreciating. His sharp bones jutted from that soft, muscleless skin, chin, nose and bare hips, she had sketched them all with her fingertips countless times but the ache to do it again was unabated. She took a breath and submerged herself in the water and then busied her hands picking the knots out of her hair and scrubbing the hard travel from her body. 

Sometime during her splashing and sighing she missed Solas rising and when she surfaced, pulling her wet hair back from her face, she saw him leaning one hand against the far rock wall, head hanging, water from a small fall sluicing over the nape of his neck, down his back. The ache turned into an unignorable need and she knifed through the water and pulled herself up on the ledge where the fall tumbled into the pond. He hadn’t noticed her approach, but he did notice when she wrapped her arm around his chest and pressed against his back, water spilling over both of them. She rested her cheek against the side of his neck and kissed the delicate arch of bone behind his ear, licking the droplets off her lips. 

“You taste like a glacier,” she said breathing in deep, “and you smell like winter.” She meant he smelled like home. Solas didn’t move, but she felt his breath catch against her arm where she held him. She tasted the long line of the back of his jaw, sucking the sharp point into her mouth, feeling the beat of his pulse against her lip. His sigh was low and faint enough that she nearly lost it under the sound of the water. She wanted to dig her fingers into him, bring him harder against her, use her tongue and teeth to build on that sigh, to make him - she closed her eyes and stopped. She moved back far enough that her lips grazed his skin, but she no longer had it inside her mouth.

“Do you want to go back to the camp?” she asked, voice harsh and deep. She let her grip loosen and settled her arm around his waist. If he wanted to pull away, it would be easy. The Inquisitor laid the beak of her nose against his neck and paused, making herself listen; the susurrus of water against sand, the murmur of wind against leaves, the silence of vacillation against desire. There was always this strained moment where she felt him struggle against what - her? Himself? The want so endless she wasn’t sure how their skin contained it?

“No,” he said, straightening, turning in her arms and pulling them both deeper into the depression behind the spill of water. “I do not want that, you know what I-'' He kissed her with all the dammed ardor that was always waiting when he won, or lost, that fight with himself. She responded unthinking and entirely, his consent breaking her glass thin restraint. He clutched his arms around her back and she buried her tongue in his mouth. She wanted the _ taste _ of him. She always did. This was a hunger that feeding couldn’t sate. She pressed him further into the alcove, worrying his lip between her teeth and pushing against him until he was half leaning, half sitting against the shelf of rock behind the fall. The world narrowed, the threats, the intrigues, gone. Everything was the beat of the water, the roiling heat of his satin skin, the sharp meaty taste of his sweat.

She couldn’t get enough of him under her tongue, sucking the flesh of his shoulder into her mouth and biting down, hearing him groan, biting harder, his response was louder than the echo of the falls. His hands were limp on her shoulders, letting her take everything she wanted. It was so rare for him not to slow her, distract her with busy lips and fingers. She laved him nipple to navel, mouthing and licking, holding him hard and still. Her hands had picked up a layer of silt and sand, and she left a trail of it where she held him. She nipped at his side, feeling him jerk up as far as her hands would let him. Her breasts grazed against his cock, grown suddenly hard as she leaned over him. 

“_Vehnan, vehnan_,” he rasped, his body captured between the unyielding rock and her unrelenting mouth. “I want to be wrapped in you.” She pushed his knees apart with her hips, feeling his skin slide along the slick stone. She mouthed his stomach, drawing the sharp line of her teeth down it, rubbed her cheek against the line of his hip, hands holding tight on his thighs, pinning him. 

“_Sathan_,” he gasped, please. Even now, passion mounting, he had that formal, archaic lilt in his speech. She wanted him to forget the possibility of dignity, to think of nothing but what she made him feel. She licked the inside of his thigh, worrying it between her teeth. “_Sathan_,” he said again, more breathless, a yipping sound, she growled against him, rolled her eyes up to meet his. They had gone wide and hungry. 

“_Jupalan ma sule tel mar sule’din_,” she rasped, I will fuck you to the ends of my stamina. His cock responded to the elvish before he did, reddening, hard, weeping, but she had said it to hear his response, and gods it was sweet. “ _ Mar av’in _ !” He didn’t beg for her to gentle her touch or to go slowly, but for her mouth. She pressed her thumbs hard into the inside of his thighs, squeezing the soft flesh and leaned down to breathe a line down his erection. “_Ar'm mar, vehnan_,” I’m yours, love. His voice was tight and he writhed under the strength of her hands. She gave him what he asked for, sucking the salt taste of him. He sobbed out incoherent gasps. She reached behind him, hands cupping his ass, pulling him forward so she could take him deeper. She was always so damned _ starved _for him: taste, skin, hands, cock. She curled her body forward and sucked him into her until she felt the back of her throat closing around the curved head of his cock. She pulled up high enough to breathe and then swallowed him back down 

“_Tel'diana_,” he panted, don’t stop. She wouldn’t. She never wanted to, body pulsing and needing more. She worked her tongue under his shaft and released one of his thighs so that she could stroke him, slick and hard. His hips pressed up under her. She moved back, shallower and faster, sharp high gasps coming from him, she felt the muscles in his thigh tense, his body arching until his cries wound higher and she felt the pulsing throb as he came for her. Her breath came in uneven pants as she raised her mouth off of him and looked up the limp line of his body. His iridescent skin was painted with livid marks from her mouth and the dirt she’d traced onto him with her fingertips. Dazzling.

He reached down to cup her cheek, chest still heaving. She leaned forward and licked the final drop of come off of him. He shuddered again. 

“My heart, ah for you and this I could-” He blinked down at her, eyes clouded, momentarily confused. He shook his head and ran his hand up to brush over the stubble on the side of hers. 

“Go again?” she asked, eyebrows raising and tongue flicking her lower lip. She turned her head to capture the flesh of his palm between her teeth. He groaned and in a flash of movement pushed her onto her back, hand cradling the back of her head. He had driven them half under the fall, his body over hers, water spilling around him and beating against her skin. Her body pounded with the rhythm and she pulled him down against her, making him close the impossible distance. He kissed her, brief and hard before sucking his way down her throat and nuzzling at the hollow. She dug her fingers into the back of his neck, urging him on and keeping him close. His hips pressed into hers, he braced himself on one hand, the other reaching to cup the weight of her breast. Her nipples were hard from the chill of the water and stayed that way under the heat of his mouth. 

“Solas,” she gasped, breath coming fast, he moaned, the sound a deep vibration along her skin sending another jolt of desire rolling through her. She ground her hips against him and pushed his shoulder, demanding more of him, more of his mouth. He moved down her body, tongue leaving a hot line on her skin. Without him over her, the water fell full force against her chest and shoulders, chill and obscuring, she saw him move behind the mist and twisting water. Gooseflesh rose and his tongue set it to rest. He kissed along the hard curve of her waist, hand moving lower to stroke along her inner thigh. He gave her what she wanted before she asked for it, licking long, broad lines against her clit. She cried out, legs locking around his back, holding him tight with her thighs. His hands moved over the wet line of her hips while his mouth sealed over her, sucking, tongue ridged and flicking. Her skin felt tight and hot despite the erratic cool pressure of the water, she gasped and pushed her hips up, wanting him closer. Wanting more. She felt her belly tighten and he grasped her harder, mouth and tongue frantically working. 

“Yes,” she gasped, high and ringing, pressing harder against him, rocking against his mouth. She came. The orgasm moved through her body in ripples, concentric circles of pleasure radiating from the throb in her clit. One pinprick of climax, rippling through her and back down again, over and over, body reeling with it until she slacked her hold on him, panting. He rested his cheek against her thigh and she laid still, feeling the rush of her breath, the water spattering against her skin, unwilling to move. She felt him shift, sitting up, reaching down to take her hand and haul her forward. 

“You’ll drown if you are not careful, _ vehnan_,” he said, leaning back against the shelf of rock. 

“Worth it, then,” she said, straddling his hips, chest pressed to his and laying her cheek against his neck. He wrapped long arms around her and the silt and the sand she’d laid in was rough against them.

“Yes,” he sighed, running fingertips along the unscarred line of her spine. “This feels worth very nearly anything.” 

***

The delay could not last forever and Adamant was everything they feared. Spirits corrupted and cruelly bound, wave after wave of Grey Wardens. The Fade, twisted, brought close to this world and so wrong. A spirit fatted on fear and monstrous, mocked him and what he must do. Nothing the debased Fade could show Solas was worse than the moment he ran through the Rift, looked behind him, and realized she had not followed. Lost. Lost to him. Lost in a way so much worse than leaving, than betrayal. 

“Varric, where are they?” Cullen asked, the words nearly senseless as Solas stared into the pulsing green portal. 

“We cannot leave them,” he said, taking one uncertain step towards it. No, he could not leave _her _.

She could not be gone. He would not allow it. Without her the world would be destroyed. He was not certain if he meant this world, the world that was, or his world. It did not matter. He would pull her back. His hand reached out, fingers brushing the portal, feeling the sopping, electric pulse of it...and then flesh. He did not cry out when it was Alistair, the chief Warden, who appeared. He would have if the second figure had not been her. Whole. Safe. He wrapped his hands around her shoulders needing to be certain. 

"_Ar sil_ _ma dea lathbora viran_,” he feared she had gone down a path he could not follow, but would always wish to. 

“_Din_,” no, she said, “Hawke, _ as halam'shivanas_,” took that path, made the necessary sacrifice. Her hands covered his, gaze solid and real and alive. She was pulled from him almost immediately. Varric needed her, Cullen needed her, the army needed her, Solas was only given that brief instant of relief.

Late in the evening, Solas found her drunk and consoling Cullen. The Commander shot him a stricken look that Cullen tried to hide and Solas ignored. The Inquisitor had given them enough of herself, they could all take her back in the morning and he would be the first to push her back into duty and danger, but it was enough for tonight. Duty could spare her for a few hours and he would give them to her. He joked and tricked her up and moving, leaving Cullen alone by the fire. 

She leaned against him as they made their way back to their tent, her arm around his shoulders and the weight of her a relief. She was humming something he did not recognize under her breath that smelled of the strong spirits. She had not changed since they returned from the Fade and stank of sweat and ashes and the ichor of the spider who ate fear. He sidestepped to draw her closer, wanting to be enveloped in it. She tilted her face towards him, eyes meeting his, but for once they were unfocused.

“You don’t need to worry, you know,” she said, arm still around his shoulder, hand squeezing his upper arm. “We won’t let you.”

He paused for half a moment - did she know? He felt his body begin to tighten with alarm and made himself relax suddenly tense muscles. Could she possibly have learned something from the Fade? Surely anything she might have seen could be explained away as lies from corrupted spirits. 

“Will not let me what, _ vehnan_?” he asked, forcing a smile and settling himself tighter against her, hand caressing along her hip, distracting.

“The tombstone. You aren’t alone now. And you won’t be again. The Inquisition won’t let you.” She leaned in and kissed his chin, a quick, stolen motion. “We’re very powerful. Too powerful. And so no one need be alone. We’re home.” She had spent the day leading a charge against hopeless odds, facing a spirit older and more tainted than he was and finished the night soothing their grieving friend and traumatized Commander. Now this remarkable woman was trying to comfort him.

Under the cloud of alcohol and exhaustion, was that soft, defenseless smile and a love he had found as wide as it was free. He was pinned by it. Duty and what he owed felt so far away. It had been too near a thing, having her trapped in the Fade, fighting a fight even she could not win and now this reassurance, this open expression. He would not lose her again. Not for magic, not for his people and not for the world that should be. 

“I know, my heart,” he said and for all the lies he had told, he meant it. 

She kissed him and it tasted of violets and sour breath, her lips were solid and chapped, her fingers were strong and icy. Nothing had ever felt as real as this. Not since he woke and not even in the world that was. He wanted to tell her everything, he wanted to stay, he wanted to _ finally _ be home.

***

He took her to the grove. This discussion needed to happen somewhere far from Skyhold, from interruptions, somewhere beautiful, somewhere so full of magic that what he told her might seem real. He meant to start by telling her the truth of the _ vallaslin _ and then...the rest. 

“Then cast your spell, take the _ vallaslin _away,” her voice was so certain, so strong, even after hearing the pitiable mistake of her people. Of course she had wanted the symbol of subjugation stripped from her. A woman obsessed with freedom and the bonds she chose. He had known before he offered it. She trusted him, one last time. He betrayed her, again, for what he wanted to be the last time.

He had forgotten. Forgotten how the power felt, flowing through his hands along the supplicant’s skin, embracing them, submerging them, freeing them. Watching the hateful marking blow away like ash. Liberty. He remembered countless faces stripped, the gratitude of his followers who were finally unbound. He saw them reflected in her wide pinning eyes. Breaking this wrong was even finer than the perfect healing in the true world. The world he had been willing to sacrifice _ everything _ to make. 

“_Ar lasa mala revas_. You are free.”

It should have been then, he should have told her then. That he ever could have told her, could have stayed, was the greatest lie he had ever told himself. 

He told her nothing, except to harden _ her _ heart. He loved her, and there were moments when they seemed to be the only people of consequence in the world. They were not. There was so much more than his love. 

How could he let her be the last he freed? Leaving the world as it was would strand every last one of his people in a land more barren and hopeless than the one he had saved them from. It was his duty and he could not reconcile it with his love. As much as he wished she could be his path, she was not. He would not damn the world for her. 

He left her in the grove, her bared, stricken face looking as strange, as mocking, as the _ vallaslin _had when he first met her. 

***

“I’m glad you asked me,” Blackw— _ Rainier _ said, watching her half-heartedly cook the pheasants he had shot. 

The walk out into the woods had been quiet, nothing spoken that wasn’t about the hunt. She had been grateful for the quiet and the distraction, but now the hunt was done. Sitting by the fire meant too much time for conversation and too much time for her to replay those last moments over. One more thing the Dalish got wrong. One more lover split from her. She felt those twin pains keen and hollow in her chest. 

“After everything,” he let a pause stand in for all that had happened, the gallows, the prison, the reprieve. “Not beheading me doesn’t mean you want to share a tent.” It was true that she wanted to prove to Rainier that she’d meant what she’d said. This is what they had done before _ everything _ . Hunted together, worked together, argued about the Inquisition’s place in the world. He was her friend and she intended to try to knit what was broken between them. She also hadn’t wanted to face her, _ their _, empty bed in Skyhold, or the sweet remains Solas had left behind. When she returned, the bed would be stripped and turned and the smell of him would be off her pillows.

“I’ve missed this,” he offered, when she didn’t respond, too caught up. “The hunts, the woods, the quiet.” 

“Who else was I going to ask?” she asked, wanting to focus on the man across from her and away from the glowing grove with its tingle of magic. “Might be this is our last chance before we try for Corypheus.” She leaned back and stared at the wintery stars, sharp and clear. “I’ve missed it too.” She had, but she still should have come alone. 

The _ vallaslin_.

Solas. 

Corypheus. 

She couldn’t let this trip her. She needed to be stronger. She needed to push _ harder _ . She needed _ him _ just for a little while longer until she could-gods, no. What kind of way was that to think? He owed her nothing and she _ wanted _ nothing he couldn’t give eagerly. 

“You might want to give that pheasant a turn, it’s burning.” She’d been staring into the sky and not seeing anything. 

“First to kill doesn’t cook, remember?” she grumbled, sullenly half turning the spit. “Think that includes giving advice.” Some mood to be mending fences, heart aching and mind elsewhere. 

“Only if you know what you’re doing,” he reached out and turned it the rest of the way.

“So even when I lose, I win? Not much of a fair bet,” she snorted and let him.

“If I let you ruin it, we’ll both be eating cold rations and that doesn’t seem like much of a win in anyone’s books.” He banked the coals, stopping the meat from searing before it was cooked through. “First time in a long time I’ve seen you miss.” 

She hesitated too long before answering.

“Everyone has an unlucky day.” It sounded short and sour, even to her ears. 

“Hmm,” he said, slicing into the bird, quartering it and dishing it onto one of the wooden rashers. “And it’s got nothing to do with,” he brushed his cheek with his thumb, where the _ vallaslin _used to be thick on hers. 

“No more than you making the shot has to do with _ lilies_,” she snarled, meaning the flowers he left, hopelessly, on Josie’s desk, thoughtlessly striking out. “Leave it, Rainier.” 

“Heh, Cassandra said you took her head off, too,” he didn’t sound chastened or likely to leave off. “It worried her enough that she spoke to me about something besides the campaign for the first time since you pardoned me.” He handed her the still sizzling bird and she barely kept herself from snatching it. “You’ll have to do better than me admiring Josie to scare me off. She asked me about you, too. So did Sera, said it was my turn to have ‘the boring important chatter.’”

“What about the scaffold?” The Inquisitor asked, spearing a piece of the meat and shoving it in her mouth. Ashamed of the words and the sharpness of her tone, but unable to stop it. 

“You’d just have to come drag me off it again. Come on, Inquisitor, if not here,” he gestured at the woods they’d spent so much time in, “where? And what can you tell me that won’t be worse than what I told you?”

“They were bond servant marks,” this time the snap in her voice included the truth. “We’ve been wearing _ brands _ this whole time. Solas took them. Then he left me. And now we’re going to face an unkillable god. That _ enough_?” she asked, snapping her teeth and spitting into the fire. 

He stayed silent for a moment and then laughed, a loud, surprised sound.

“Yeah, that’d about do it. You don’t do anything by halves do you, lady? Not friendship, saving the world or getting your heart broken.” 

She felt an answering laugh trapped in her chest, but it was buried too deep. Under the rage and grief and the pain. It would have felt good, but it was buried. She _ couldn’t _. The words she needed to say felt like broken bones. Rainier would have understood all of it, but instead she slammed the half full plate down. 

“I’m turning in,” she said it through a thin line of lips and to his shocked face.

“Inquisitor, you know-”

“I’m done, Rainier.” She left him to clean up one mess, while she tried and failed to control her own. 

***

Solas sat alone in the Rotunda, trying to sketch what would be the last panel of the story. The final painting he would leave behind him. He worked in charcoal and pastels on a large sheet of paper. It would be the farewells he did not give her. All the goodbyes he would not say. 

The page was filled with rejected designs. A many eyed wolf surrounding a strong elvish figure. The wolf slinking away from the same. The wolf devouring the elf. The elf next to many other colourful figures, the wolf small and hunched far from her. The wolf eating them all. 

And over and over, between the other patterns, a pair of hard, sad eyes, staring uncomprehending and unyielding. He would start a new sketch and find himself drawing those eyes again, her eyes. Days after he had left her in the grove and they still pinned him, full of the heartbreak he had always known he would cause. 

What picture could express his certainty and also his regret? He was caught between those dear, damning eyes and the desperately blank portion of the wall that he did not know how to fill.


End file.
